Dear Provider, I’m Fat and Sick. Can I Trust You to Treat Me?

We’re currently experiencing a movement in our culture toward being more inclusive of marginalized individuals. However, there still remains a difference in the effectiveness of services that can be provided by someone identifying themselves as an ally versus someone with actual lived experience. One part of this lack of effectiveness can be boiled down to the learned lack of trust marginalized patients have in these interactions due to a history of erasure, disregard, and paternalism, which highlights the need for medical providers to bridge this gap. In this talk, Tiana will share about her own experiences with medical providers as a long-time fat person, with multiple other marginalized identities, including chronic illnesses. She will discuss how these encounters caused her harm, made her wary of future medical relationships and interventions, and how these negative impacts could have been avoided.

Learning Objectives:

Attendees will:

1. Hear directly from a fat person about their experiences
2. Better understand the effects of negative interactions with medical providers for fat people
3. Learn how to better nurture a trusted relationship between marginalized patients and themselves
4. Develop an understanding of what a fat person needs from you as a provider in order to feel safe

Tiana Dodson Bio: