This week, Amanda and Veronica are joined by PhD Candidate, Allyson Bontempo. They three talk about Allyson’s research on medical invalidation with endometriosis, and why, as someone with endometriosis herself, she set down this path to research endometriosis and medical invalidation on such a deep level. Sharing her personal endo and research journey, Allyson explains the background of her PhD program and the research she has carved out for herself in communication between medical providers and endometriosis patients, and how researching something so close to home can feel. They talk about how medical dismissal can make patients feel, how it affects proper care, and how it could possibly be leading to the rarity of disorders and syndromes not being as rare as we all think. Veronica and Amanda play TikTok Trend of Nah with Allyson.
You can follow Allyson on twitter @acbontempo and Instagram @allysonbontempophd.
You can also read more about her on her website: Allyson C. Bontempo - Home (allysoncbontempo.com)
Allyson Bontempo is a PhD Candidate in communication from Rutgers University, NJ, where she studies health communication, particularly patient-clinician communication. Over the past seven years, Allyson has conducted three research projects on patient-clinician communication in the context of endometriosis. She is especially interested in invalidating communication that patients receive from clinicians, especially during their journey to diagnosis, and ways to improve the communication that takes place under conditions of diagnostic uncertainty, when clinicians may be more apt to invalidate patients’ symptoms.
