Cris
I went to an appointment while I was experiencing many unexplained and debilitating symptoms. My neurologist was very kind and a good listener, but he was stumped about my symptoms, so he brought his supervisor to the room, who basically took over from there. I unfortunately can't remember her name. But she was very condescending. She literally scoffed and said "I've never heard of something like that". And give off a vibe that says — I'm the expert. If I've never heard of an illness like this, it's not valid or it doesn't exist. She suggested that I exercise more. And I insisted that my worst symptoms (severely distressing) couldn't be explained away by "lack of exercise". But she looked at me like I'm being silly and repeated that I probably need exercise and told me to return in a month if I don't feel better, but that I probably will. Months later I got my diagnosis from another doctor (a lesser known chronic illness) and I was able to get treatment... I understand that a doctor might not know everything, but was there a need to be condescending? I told her we can discard the possibility that it's lack of exercise, we could have moved onto brainstorming what was actually wrong. Instead I was expected to go home with no advice other than "exercise and come back in a month".