Unheard: The Medical Practice of Silencing

Have you ever felt unheard by your doctor? Been frustrated that they haven’t understood your symptoms, that they have neglected your concerns?

When Dr Rageshri Dhairyawan was admitted to hospital as a patient she didn’t receive the pain medication that she told them she needed, despite her being a senior doctor. It was in that moment she understood that something was deeply wrong with our healthcare system. Doctors aren’t listening, and it is making us ill.

In Unheard, Dr Dhairyawan takes us on a journey through history to show how not listening to patients has been ingrained in medicine from its inception. Western medicine has been built on the assumption that power should always lie with the doctor, and that patients should be powerless to decisions made about their body if it is done to make them well. This, alongside the prejudices of society, has led to dramatic gaps in medical knowledge because for centuries people have not been heard.

Dr Dhairyawan offers a way to reshape our health system for a future where active and engaged listening is the new frontier in a timely, shocking and engaging exposé of the medical world.