06/18/2026
Imagine this:
You're 72 years old and you go to the Emergency Room for a medical problem.
During your evaluation, someone reviews your chart and sees that you have a psychiatric diagnosis documented in your medical history.
As the day goes on, you begin to feel like something has changed.
You came to the hospital for a medical concern, but now it feels as though people are viewing everything through the lens of your mental health history.
Additional tests are ordered. You are told what is going to happen, but very little is explained.
Then a provider recommends a test that you've had before—one that resulted in a negative experience.
Naturally, you have concerns.
You ask questions. You hesitate. You want to understand why the test is necessary before agreeing to it.
But instead of feeling heard, you begin to feel like people are looking at you differently because you're objecting.
You start wondering if your concerns are being interpreted as a mental health issue rather than a reasonable response based on your past experience.
Hours later, you're admitted to the medical floor.
The room is cold and sparse. No tables. Very little furniture. The bathroom has no door and few basic amenities.
You're told it's temporary until another room is available.
That room never comes.
The next morning, someone hands you a questionnaire focused on memory and orientation.
Now you're convinced that people are evaluating your mental state rather than focusing on the medical issue that brought you to the hospital.
Whether that's actually happening isn't the point.
The point is that no one has taken the time to explain what's happening, why it's happening, or what role you play in the decisions being made about your care.
As a patient advocate, I've learned that many patient complaints are not about poor medical care. They're about poor communication.
Patients have the right to ask questions.
Patients have the right to understand why tests are being ordered.
Patients have the right to participate in decisions about their care.
And patients should never feel like healthcare is being done to them instead of with them.
Sometimes the difference between a patient feeling cared for and a patient feeling traumatized is simply whether someone took the time to explain what was happening.
