MARIN COUNTY, Calif., Oct. 8, 2024
Heart Blaster Founder, Sophillia Tagaban, advocates against medical gaslighting, empowering self-advocacy and promoting ethical communication to address systemic biases in healthcare.
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MARIN COUNTY, Calif., Oct. 8, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- The importance of understanding the principles that shape the way we communicate with people in our daily lives matters. The connectivity between our identities and communication can support a healthier community. It can change the way we collaborate and understand each other which can lead to building more trusting relationships. This applies to institutions vital to our daily lives: familial, educational, and economic, such as healthcare.
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Knowing this information helps bridge the gap for our impact. The way we interpret communication shapes life experiences and how we show up for others.
It is important to understand communication with a perspective that your personal development starts with your family. Personal development is forever changing, complex, and significant. Every childhood experience is different. Cultural differences and subcultures are influential in our communication development as well. This relates to interpersonal communication and has a deep influence in our daily intercultural communication.
To be reciprocated appropriately heavily relies on our abilities to listen without bias.
Advocacy is often looked at from an outer perspective, however, it is in the fabric of communication. We advocate for ourselves and our needs. It is critical to our relationships, our safety, our education, our healing. We can honor our own identities, while understanding the experience of other peoples, and its complexities within communication.
Are we implementing communication education into our communities, and the training for institutions who aim to serve and protect public health.
Understanding basic interpersonal (IPC) and intercultural communication (ICC) skills lead to more ethical communication. When equipped with IPC/ICC it helps navigate various situations, environments, and creates more understanding within the communication experience. These important skills do not discriminate between your family, child's teacher's or your family's healthcare provider's.
Practicing basic communication skills help lead without bias, prejudice, and discrimination our internal and external systems.These skills make us good communicators, while keeping safe boundaries, respect, while creating curious listeners. Meaningful collaboration begins in this space.
It is important to acknowledge in the public health sector and in life where pushing our own expectations onto people creates a toxic culture that leads to discrimination, stereotyping, miscommunications, code switching, and medical gaslighting.
One of my past students Akeyla Tanskley, whom I worked with through the Boys and Girls Teen Club in South San Francisco, presented a TEDTalk on the topic of code switching. Akeyla is a brilliant young woman. She was named Youth of the Year in 2022. In this video she explains the dangers behind code switching within institutions.
Personally and professionally the topic of communications resonates with me deeply.
As a multi-ethnic woman of color the factors of my life have influenced my abilities to communicate. This has fueled my passion to advocate for youth. It has been the focal point of my work. When we can start to understand our own life experiences, we can harness our full potential and communicate this into our worlds. It is a personal journey to process and evolve into our highest selves, and the timing is different for each of us. Factors that influence our communication are subconscious until we learn to understand them.
Published, UCLA Newsroom, by Dan Gordon in 2016, " injustices have contributed to everything from economic inequalities to inequities in some physical health outcomes." UCLA experts say and research shows that discrimination is tied to mental health. It has an impact of increasing mental health disorders, anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and cognitive function, which can have a further impact on entire family units. While this article highlights the importance of public health, imagine being discriminated against by your public health physician and the further impact this can have on your mental health.
My most recent discrimination experience in healthcare was this past year. I saw a number of Kaiser physicians at many appointments over months. Systems can discriminate. A system that held tight to biased medical opinions about my body, " doesn't look like it to me, doesn't meet the criteria, welp here is where we get to disagree, well I'm not going to treat something I can't see, no you don't have an infection, dermatology said, maybe you should let it get worse so we can see it, well I'm not giving you antibiotics, let's focus on, why don't you get past medical records to prove it, we can't treat you as a family go through the system, refer back to your primary care physician I can't help you, I will be honest I don't know much about impetigo or staph resistance, I will give you a small prescription not because I believe you but because you asked." I heard the last statement twice from two different physicians at Kaiser. This is a great example of how incredibly biased a system in a public institution can be. This is medical gaslighting.
Every doctor I saw put me through the same process, and reiterated the notes from the previous physician. No one ever asked how I felt. No one cared to acknowledge how much I was suffering. In fact, what I said to my last physician in messaging was " I do not appreciate being talked to like I am some ignorant minority woman who doesn't know anything about myself and my children." The impact of this experience kept me sick for months, putting me at risk for a more severe infection, or worsening state because I am a bacteria resistant person. I suffered through many sleepless nights with staph scabs and lesions on my body. My mental health was impacted, overstimulated as I am also someone who has ADHD. I went through some very dark moments. I have other health comorbidities due to the stress and lack of support. My family has been at risk because this is highly contact-contagious and have been impacted by my emotional distress.
The implications of a biased medical system can worsen existing prejudices resulting in systemic inequalities. I think about other families who may have been diagnosed with "eczema and dermatitis", over skin issues that are not being recognized due to unethical communication, limited knowledge and aimless note taking. The amount of debt I have acquired over the last year is unfair to say the very least.
In Marin County, one of the wealthiest yet more expansive California counties, people of color cannot afford to get sick.
After struggling with Kaiser for months, I was referred to a Dermatologist by a friend. He listened, took lots of notes, acknowledged my family history, and thoroughly evaluated my body. I showed him images of the progression of the infection, so he could appreciate my current status. I told him what helped, and what made it worse. He listened. I told him about my resistance and he agreed that my case was rare, but significant. He confirmed what I knew about my body and my family.The hippocratic oath meant something to him.
My advice to everyone is to treat your public health interactions like anyone else you are going to encounter for the first time. Treat the appointment as an interview, or a potential partner, and remember the quality of this relationship and quality of care matter. If it doesn't work out, make them an ex. If you feel that you have been medically wronged, always speak up, change doctors, get a second opinion, and find an advocate at a higher level. Learn or continue to be meticulous, save important information, and file a consumer complaint with the Medical Board of California. Home | Medical Board of California
In public health every encounter provides an opportunity to learn more about the people in our communities. When we place expectations on people we rob them of their valued personal experience. We all deserve to be treated well.
While the timing of communication development should be at the forefront of our educational systems, only a small section of communication is taught in public schools. This is an opportunity for change!
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Founder, Sophillia Tagaban
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heartblaster.org
About Heart Blaster
The founder of Heart Blaster, Sophillia Tagaban, is shedding light on the issue of medical gaslighting, advocating for a more equitable and compassionate approach to healthcare and communication. Heart Blaster is dedicated to addressing systemic biases, focusing on ethical, interpersonal, and intercultural communication (IPC/ICC). By empowering individuals to advocate for themselves, Heart Blaster works to amplify voices often silenced in healthcare, promoting a culture of empathy, respect, and self-advocacy. Through its efforts, Heart Blaster seeks to implement its mission of fostering a personal responsibility to public health through communication, education, and resources.
Media Contact
Rachel Keating, Heart Blaster, 1 310-483-8041, [email protected], https://heartblaster.org/
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