Discover Your Doctor's-Visit Communication Style.
Your communication style is your best tool for self-advocacy. Uncover yours to start shifting the power dynamic in the exam room.
Quiz developed by Jennifer Zambito, MSW, specializing in pain mangement, feminist theory, and somatic techniques.
Stop being ignored by a medical system that dismisses women's chronic pain.
“Come as you are” should apply to doctor visits—but it doesn’t. If you’re a woman, you’ve probably been dismissed, doubted, or talked over. Since doctors aren’t changing anytime soon, this quiz helps you identify your communication style — so you can navigate a system that wasn’t designed with women in mind.
Healthcare wasn’t designed with your needs in mind. Doctors minimize women’s symptoms, call their pain “stress,” and tell them to relax — can you relate? This quiz shows how your communication style plays out in a system already stacked against you.
You can’t control your doctor, but you can control how you show up. Knowing your communication style gives you the clarity to stop feeling embarrassed for being back, stop second-guessing yourself, and start feeling more powerful in the exam room.
Your quality of life — now and in the future — depends on this awareness.
In Just 90-Seconds You'll Learn
Why your communication style when talking to your doctor matters (with all the medical gaslighting this must-know!).
How your style collides with a system built for men (it's a man's world!).
The clarity to take your first intentional step toward self-advocacy.
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This 90-second quiz helps you understand your communication style within a medical system that routinely fails women.
In a system that routinely dismisses women’s pain, walking in without clarity about how you show up doesn’t mean you’re the problem — it simply leaves you at an even greater disadvantage in a system that already isn’t working for women.
Understanding your communication style in doctor visits helps you enter the room with intention rather than apology, self-doubt, or self-silencing — and that shift changes everything.
Imagine walking into your next appointment feeling confident, empowered, and ready to advocate for the care you deserve.
It is possible.
Awareness is the first step...
Why This Quiz Matters
It's not you. it's the system.
Take the 90-second quiz to uncover your communication style — and start getting heard.
You're not imaginging being brushed off — the numbers back it up...
✓ Over 80% of women report having their pain dismissed by a doctor, according to a 2024 survey covered by Yahoo Life UK.
✓ One Psychology Today–referenced survey found that 93% of women felt completely dismissed during their medical appointments.
✓ Chronic pain conditions like endometriosis still take an average of 7 to 10 years to diagnose, in large part because women are repeatedly told their symptoms are “normal” or “stress-related.”
Sometimes it takes seeing the truth laid out in front of you to realize just how much you’ve been carrying. And if this resonated with you while reading, it’s because it named what you’ve been living with for far too long. You are not alone.
You’re not "too sensitive."
You’re not "too reactive."
You’re not "too much" of anything — the system is too dismissive.
You are reacting normally to a healthcare system that routinely minimizes women's pain.
And your pain is real.
The truth is, you’re already at a disadvantage the moment you walk through that door.
Not knowing your communication style puts you at an even greater one.
This isn’t about fixing yourself or being more palatable.
It’s about getting clear on how you show up.
Women are socialized to be “good girls” — to smile, stay agreeable, and keep everyone else comfortable. The cost of that conditioning is steep, because it follows women straight into the exam room and blatantly fuels symptom minimization — through no fault of your own.
That same training teaches women not to question authority. Somewhere along the way, doctors were placed in that untouchable category. The result? Women being invalidated, told their symptoms are “all in their head,” and having chronic pain dismissed as “just stress.”
Medical care is supposed to be collaborative — though I’d bet my top-of-the-line heating pad your doctor hasn’t received that memo.
When you layer this conditioning on top of bias, outdated medical training, and gendered assumptions about pain, walking into an appointment can feel like stepping onto a battleground before you’ve said a single word. It’s no wonder so many women experience dismissal before they’re heard.
Understanding your doctor-visit communication style — and the patterns absorbed through years of socialization — is the first step in taking your power back.
Understanding your doctor-visit communication style — and the patterns absorbed through years of socialization — is the first step in taking your power back.
Forces That Shape Your Doctor-Visit Communication Style