Medical Gaslighting: How Patients Learn to Doubt Themselves

What Medical Gaslighting Does to Patients?

Medical gaslighting is a term increasingly used to describe clinical encounters in which patients’ symptoms, concerns, or lived experiences are dismissed, minimized, or reframed without adequate evaluation, leading patients to question their own perceptions and judgment. Contemporary medical literature often situates this phenomenon within the framework of epistemic injustice, in which power imbalances and cognitive biases undermine patients’ credibility or systemic pressures (Ng, 2024; Moss et al., 2025).

Significantly, medical gaslighting does not always stem from intentional harm. Research suggests it frequently arises from time constraints, diagnostic bias, communication failures, and systemic strain—yet the consequences for patients can be profound and long-lasting (Fuss, 2024; Faytong-Haro, 2025).

Why Does Medical Gaslighting Happen?

Medical gaslighting most often occurs at the intersection of human limitation and system dysfunction.

Key contributors include:

• Time pressure and cognitive overload increase the risk of premature diagnostic closure and symptom dismissal (ECRI, 2025).

• Cognitive bias, including anchoring, diagnostic overshadowing, and attributing physical symptoms to anxiety or stress without sufficient workup (Ng, 2024).

• Implicit bias and health inequities, with higher reported dismissal among women, LGBTQ+ patients, and individuals with chronic or complex conditions (Nowaskie et al., 2025).

• Communication breakdowns, such as interruptions, lack of explanation, or failure to validate patient narratives (Faytong-Haro, 2025).

While these factors may not involve malicious intent, their cumulative effect can be deeply damaging.

Who Pays the Bill?

The financial and human cost of medical gaslighting is distributed unevenly:

• Patients often absorb immediate costs through repeated appointments, delayed diagnoses, lost income, and emotional distress.

• Health systems and insurers bear the downstream costs of avoidable emergency visits, complications, and escalated care.

• Society at large incurs high costs due to diagnostic failure, which has been shown to impose substantial economic and public health burdens (Slawomirski et al., 2025).

Precise cost figures attributable solely to gaslighting are challenging to quantify, but diagnostic error is among the most expensive and harmful patient-safety failures in modern healthcare.

How Often Does It Occur?

There is no single standardized metric for measuring medical gaslighting. However, patient-reported dismissal is common:

• ECRI’s Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns for 2025 identifies dismissal of patient concerns as a significant safety risk, citing surveys in which the majority of respondents reported feeling ignored or minimized by clinicians (ECRI, 2025).

• Population-specific research, including studies published in JAMA Network Open, documents gaslighting-like experiences in patients seeking care for chronic and stigmatized conditions (Moss et al., 2025).

To contextualize severity, outpatient diagnostic error has been estimated at approximately 5%, with serious harms occurring in the hundreds of thousands annually in the United States (Newman-Toker et al., 2024).

What Happens to the Patient?

Patients who experience medical gaslighting frequently report:

• Erosion of self-trust, leading to delayed or avoided care

• Medical mistrust, particularly after repeated dismissal

• Psychological harm, including anxiety, shame, and symptoms consistent with medical trauma

• Fragmented care patterns, such as provider-hopping or complete disengagement

Over time, patients may internalize doubt, questioning their symptoms even as their condition worsens (Shapiro, 2024).

Complications and Death

While medical gaslighting itself is not a diagnosis, it can contribute directly to delayed or missed diagnoses, which are strongly linked to serious harm.

A 2024 analysis estimated nearly 800,000 serious injuries and deaths annually in the U.S. related to diagnostic error, particularly involving infections, vascular events, and cancer—conditions where dismissal and delay can be fatal (Newman-Toker et al., 2024).

Lawsuits and Legal Accountability

Medical gaslighting is not recognized as a standalone legal claim. Instead, related cases are typically pursued under medical negligence, particularly when dismissal results in:

• Failure to diagnose

• Failure to order or act on tests

• Failure to refer or escalate care

• Documented delay leading to injury or death

Diagnostic error remains one of the most common and costly sources of malpractice claims in the United States (Omojasola et al., 2024).

Conclusion

Medical gaslighting occupies a critical space between communication failure and patient safety risk. Whether intentional or not, dismissal of patient concerns undermines trust, delays diagnosis, and can lead to devastating outcomes. Addressing it requires systemic reform, awareness of bias, and a renewed commitment to listening—because patients are often the first and most reliable witnesses to their own bodies.

References

Alharbi, T. A. F., Alharbi, M. M., & Alshammari, A. (2025). Diagnostic challenges and patient safety: The critical role of clinician–patient communication. Journal of Patient Safety, 21(1), e45–e52. https://doi.org/10.1097/PTS.0000000000001092

ECRI. (2025). Top 10 patient safety concerns for 2025. ECRI Institute. https://www.ecri.org

Faytong-Haro, M. (2025). Medical gaslighting: Navigating patient–clinician mistrust and epistemic injustice in healthcare. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 40(2), 512–518. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-024-08976-3

Fuss, A. (2024). Medical gaslighting: A narrative review of clinical dismissal and patient harm. The American Journal of Medicine, 137(6), 558–563. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjmed.2024.01.019

Khan, K. (2024). Psychological impact of medical gaslighting on women: A systematic review. Health Psychology Open, 11(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1177/20551029241234567

Moss, C. F., Chinna-Meyyappan, A., Skovronsky, G., et al. (2025). Experiences of care, dismissal, and gaslighting among patients seeking treatment for vulvovaginal disorders. JAMA Network Open, 8(5), e259486. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.9486

Newman-Toker, D. E., Wang, Z., Zhu, Y., et al. (2024). Burden of serious harms from diagnostic error in the United States. BMJ Quality & Safety, 33(2), 109–120. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2023-015755

Ng, I. K. S. (2024). Medical gaslighting: A new colloquialism for a well-known phenomenon. The American Journal of Medicine, 137(4), 407–409. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjmed.2023.10.012

Nowaskie, D. Z., Roesler, A. C., & Walters, K. B. (2025). Medical-related gaslighting, trauma, and distrust among LGBTQ+ patients. Frontiers in Sociology, 10, 1298457. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2025.1298457

Omojasola, O., Hernandez-Boussard, T., & Hoffman, J. R. (2024). Characteristics and trends of diagnostic error–related malpractice claims in the United States. Journal of Patient Safety, 20(3), 145–152. https://doi.org/10.1097/PTS.0000000000001051

Shapiro, D. (2024). Medical gaslighting as a mechanism of medical trauma: Patient narratives and clinical implications. Current Psychology, 43(7), 6123–6134. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-04998-6

Slawomirski, L., Auraaen, A., & Klazinga, N. (2025). The economics of diagnostic safety. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). https://www.oecd.org