Ashanti Daniel, RN: Are nurses immune to doctors’ gaslighting? Not if you’re a black woman

Ashanti Daniel is one of those people who knew their career destiny as a child - and then made it come to fruition. As a nurse, Ashanti had the inside view of how the health care system operates - so when she got very sick and  was hospitalized multiple times, she thought that being a health care worker would afford her legitimacy in the eyes of her medical peers.  

But Ashanti quickly discovered that being a black woman with ‘normal’ results from routine medical tests, trumped years of working as a health care professional.

While medical gaslighting is endemic throughout the health care system, it is especially evident if you have a disease that has no biomarkers, and you are a female of colour.  Ask any one with a complex chronic illness, and you will most assuredly hear a story of doctors denying the patient experience of their own body, and instead attribute physical symptoms to psychological causes. And this is based on nothing except the doctor’s biases, prejudices and ego. For black female patients with a complex disease, it could be argued that the operationalized ‘standard of care’ is gaslighting. 

As Ashanti experienced, a doctor can write whatever they want about a patient in the medical records. It doesn’t have to be true. The amount of power doctors wield over people is the power of life and death. At their whim, they can deny testing, ignore a diagnosis, and label a person as mentally ill. In some jurisdictions, doctors can have a person committed to a mental hospital against their will.

The medical system is a pathological mess, driven and controlled by a god complex culture. Until doctors change their culture, there will continue to be -- as Long COVID patients are discovering en masse -- many doctors that inflict great harm by disbelieving patients.

Connect with Ashanti Daniel, RN

Instagram: @AshantiRN

Twitter: @AshantiRN

Linktr.ee: www.Linktr.ee/AshantiRN

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I am always looking for guests to share their medical error experiences so we help bring awareness and make patients safer.

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Scott Simpson: 

Counsellor + Patient Advocate + (former) Triathlete

I am a counsellor, patient advocate, and - before I became sick and disabled - a passionate triathlete. Work hard. Train hard. Rest hard.

I have been living with HIV since 1998. I was the first person living with HIV to compete at the triathlon world championships.

Thanks to research and access to medications, HIV is not a problem in my life.

I have been living with ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis) since 2012, and thanks in part to medical error, it is a big problem in my life.

Counseling / Research

I first became aware of the ubiquitousness of medical error during a decade of community based research working with the HIV Prevention Lab at Ryerson University, where I co-authored two research papers on a counseling intervention for people living with HIV, here and here. 

Patient participants would often report varying degrees of medical neglect, error and harms as part of their counseling sessions.

Patient Advocacy

I am co-founder of the ME patient advocacy non-profit Millions Missing Canada, and on the Executive Committee of the Interdisciplinary Canadian Collaborative Myalgic Encephalomyelitis Research Network.

I am also a patient advisor for Health Quality Ontario’s Patient and Family Advisory Council, and member of Patients for Patient Safety Canada.

Medical Error Interviews podcast and vidcast emerged to give voice to victims, witnesses and participants in this hidden epidemic so we can create change toward a safer health care system.

My golden retriever Gladys is a constant source of love and joy. I hope to be well enough again one day to race triathlons again. Or even shovel the snow off the sidewalk.