Challenges in the Medical Consultation:

Why do some medical consultations go wrong – and what happens when patients feel dismissed, doubted, or unheard?

This powerful event explores the challenges faced by patients with Medically Unexplained Symptoms (MUS), and the often-overlooked role of unconscious bias, ‘personas’, and diagnostic doubt in the consultation room.

Bringing together patients, clinicians, journalists, and educators, we’ll dive into difficult questions around trust, communication, and what happens when medicine doesn’t have clear answers.

Topics include:

• What’s the problem with Medically Unexplained Symptoms?
• A patient’s perspective
• The expert view: what clinicians need to know
• Why some consultations don’t go well
• Real patient stories
• Is it ‘gaslighting’? What does the literature say?
• The educationalist’s view: what can be done
• Ethical issues in difficult consultations
• Two perspectives from leading health journalists

This event is for anyone interested in improving patient–clinician communication, understanding complex health experiences, and changing the conversation around MUS.

Let’s talk about what needs to change – and how we get there.