Woman Earning Medical Degree So She Can Explain Chronic Condition to Doctors
Caitlin Garner, 28, of Springfield, VA never expected to start medical school in her late 20s. But after discovering that every medical professional she sought out was unable to understand her clear explanation of the chronic pain symptoms which had plagued her since she was a teenager, she decided the only way to receive proper care in the ass-backwards American health system would be to speak the language.
“It doesn’t make sense, I’m in tremendous debt,” she said. “I already had $40k in loans for my undergrad degree which I was slowly paying down at a job I loved, but I really had exhausted every other option.”
Garner will be certified as a Physicians Assistant in 2025. She thinks the program is already starting to pay off. “I used to tell doctors, ‘I regularly throw up and my legs go numb without explanation.’ When I changed that to, “Patient reports emesis 1–2 times per day and paresthesia of the lower extremities,” it was like a lightbulb went off for them.
Since beginning her program, Garner has been officially diagnosed with endometriosis, a painful condition which affects 1 in 10 women but the statement from the general medical establishment is, “Like ew, we don’t like to acknowledge or talk about it because periods, gross.”
In addition to learning an extensive glossary of medical terms, Garner has also found that the more she controls her basic bodily functions, the better. “I’ve found that it’s best to not be a fully alive person? Like, imagine you’re a cadaver, they seem to respond well to that.”
