Nixon Speech and Language, LLC

10/18/2026

Kindness, politeness, and passive hope vs. Strategic Navigation and Self-Advocacy

https://nixonspeechandlanguage.com/kindness-politeness-and-passive-hope-vs-strategic-navigation-and-self-advocacy/

You know the phrases: Be kind, Kindness always works, Just be polite, etc.?

How many of us with complex health conditions hear these statements when we express frustration with medical providers? And are they always true? (Hint - always statements are almost always false.)

We need to switch to respect and strategic navigation. It is your health and your life.

Correcting a provider who is misinterpreting your history isn't rude.

Letting a provider know you can hear them talking on the phone about your case outside the "curtained walls" of the ER area is protecting your privacy (HIPAA).

Asking for the attending physician when the front-line provider seems out of their depth is targeted escalation.

And telling patients to simply "be kind" flattens our lived realities and the impact of medical gaslighting. These realities that disproportionately harm women, People of Color, and individuals living with complex multi-system illness. S*x and gender bias is real. Acute care settings harbor documented racial disparities. Dismissiveness fuels medical mistrust. And there has been minimal progress in 20 years.

There is a profound difference between toxic compliance and assertive self-advocacy. Setting firm boundaries, correcting false medical records, and insisting that an acute physical symptom be taken seriously is not being "unkind"—it is engaging in necessary, life-preserving self-care.

What do you tell a medical provider who seems to be out of their depth or trying to rush you out the door?

Read the full post on my blog for more information.

10/12/2026

10/11/2026

Going to the ER is never fun but neither is the reason you went to the ER in the first place. It gets worse when a provider reacts with incredulity or dismissiveness. In my case things worked out.

And I appreciate that the initial provider at least admitted she lacked knowledge with what happened to me specifically....but amid her figuring out what to do there were comments of but I don't think we can help you here and call your ENT's on call (that's a different story) before realizing they had an ENT on call line....then it was he'll be coming from another facility and I don't know how far away it is (the other facility was less than 5 mins).

I had choked on water and oral meds. A med went into my nasopharynx and didn't come down. This isn't the first time - but it is the first time I couldn't tell if it came down. When the resident scoped me (amazing guy), he saw the irritation in the nasopharynx and above the larynx.... fortunately he couldn't find the pill 🤞🏼

But with that said, providers need to be aware that patients can hear them when they are on the phone literally across the curtains from the patient. If you don't know something, that's fine - phone a supervisor, but be aware that the patient can hear your words, your tone, etc. Don't let your lack of knowledge lead to dismissing a patient.

09/25/2026

Have you ever asked for your medical records from a facility and been told ... You were never seen here? Or we have no records? Or we purged your records?

That's what I've been dealing with for a while with a large group/facility group in the DMV. It's very frustrating.

09/04/2026

Part 7. 👏🏼 Beatrice and the nurse manager.

09/04/2026

Wrapping it all up.
Confuscious: "Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance."

conveying information to patients without true understanding/knowledge of a condition is dangerous.

09/04/2026

Part 5. Ever had a hospital forehead scanner tell you your temperature is a "normal" 97.3°F, but you feel like you're absolute fire? 🔥 If you have Raynaud’s phenomenon and dysautonomia, those thermal "thermometer guns" are fundamentally lying to your doctors.Non-contact infrared scanners don’t read your core temperature—they scan your skin surface and use a math formula to guess how hot you are inside. But when you have Raynaud’s and dysautonomia, your body’s automatic response system is hyperactive. A cool hospital room or the stress of a fever triggers major vasoconstriction, causing the blood vessels across your face and forehead to clamp completely shut.This traps heat deep in your organs while leaving your forehead skin artificially freezing. Add in invisible autonomic micro-sweating, and the evaporative cooling tricks the thermal scanner into missing a true fever. When my personal oral thermometer read 102.4°F, the hospital thermal scan missed it entirely. Drop a 🌡️ if you’ve had to fight for an oral or ear reading!
📚 Research Citations
On General Infrared Scanner Inaccuracy: Ogunleye et al., 2022 – "Are all thermometers equal? A study of three infrared thermometers" (PMC9206434) – Documents how non-contact forehead scanners systematically read significantly lower than oral equivalents.On Raynaud's Whole-Body Thermoregulation: National Center for Biotechnology Information – "Raynaud Phenomenon" (StatPearls Bookshelf NBK499833) – Explains the exaggerated sympathetic nervous system and systemic vasoconstriction mechanism.On Autonomic Skin Blood Flow Errors: Chua et al., 2024 – "Clinical accuracy of infrared temperature measurement devices" (PMC11046542) – Details how environmental drift, sweat evaporation, and microvascular skin changes corrupt thermal scanner metrics.

09/04/2026

Part 6. The bipolar responses to me having my own oral thermometer at the hospital in the notes was interesting. At least one note.sounded annoyed that I used my thermometer to check the thermal scan thermometer (provider never asked me why...) when I had symptoms of a fever yet the thermal scan read 97.3. (The answer is plain because my oral thermometer read 102.4. The nurse's then brought me an oral thermometer to keep in my room for vitals...it also read 102.4.)

09/04/2026

Part 4. Case Manager and Hospitalists. Navigating inappropriate comments and inaccurate medical advice.