Dr. Tara Narula

Yeah, I mean, to me, it was so important.

I always tell the story when I was in medical school, I had an attending who talked about making medicine personal when I was, she was a pediatrician, she runs.

huge program for domestic violence survivors out at USC.

And her words really never left me.

And so, you know, when I'm sitting in the exam room with someone, it's about making it personal for them.

And when I'm sitting on, you know, the set talking about something, it's about how do you connect in a way that people are really going to hear you and want to take action.

And it's about, you know, advocating and helping people advocate for themselves.

And I just had a woman actually today in my office tell me, you know, I came to see you because I heard you talk about

being listened to and heard.

And unfortunately, a lot of people go see doctors and they're not heard or they're dismissed.

I mean, this woman today told me she had seen several people and her symptoms were dismissed.

She was blown off.

And it is a reality in medicine that unfortunately, as the patient, you really do have to sometimes seek out a second opinion and push and really move the needle yourself because it's not always going to happen the other way.

Those days of the doctor up here and the patient down here, that doesn't exist anymore.

You need to really

come in there as if you're on equal ground with your physician and feel like you're seen and heard as a whole person.

Yeah, I mean, I've had this obviously happen a lot.

And this was part of the reason, again, why I wanted to write the book.

But I think the idea, and we walk through different tools in the book, but the first one is just about acceptance.

And so for a lot of people, when they're given a diagnosis, it's really about the acceptance that this has happened to me.