Congratulations!! 👏

@Natalie Diana Busari thank you for sharing this. What awful words from the doctor, sorry to hear this. "That personal attention really helped ease my worries." - I think this is often the key, there's another concept known as PFCC (patient and family centred care). Asking, establishing views, beliefs, needs concerns etc. during interactions instead of assuming, not placing people into a box and looking to ascribe them to the "typical" presentation is vital. Then taking into account their wider socio-cultural, and even economic context (or better yet enabling people to paint this) is helpful too.

Although there's many, I will share 1 of my earliest memories/examples from when I was a Student. For context I'm a Paramedic in the UK. We attended an elderly Asian male, think in their 60s, with acute abdo pain and vomiting (I was '3rd manning' with a crew of 2). Taking care of elderly/parents is a huge deal/value, and we received a detailed history alongside records of regular obs from the family. Knowing this, since family were concerned, I was concerned. I apply a similar principle to parents and children, that parents are more or less experts as they know their child best and them being worried is a red flag - hence in this instance family concern was a red flag. The crew I was with was very dismissive, despite the red flag of recent overseas travel. It must have been my 1st/2nd/3rd shift in my first year. It was telling, as it prepared me for the discrimination I would go on to keep encountering. Moreover, it underlined the type of Practitioner I DIDN'T want to be and pushed me to change this, starting with my own practice.