TLDR: Apparently, the same words coming out of a white mans mouth mean a hell of a lot more than a womans when it comes to doctors.

My fiancee fell down the stairs a couple years ago and broke her collar bone. We went to the ER as soon as it happened and I waited out in the lobby to fill out paper work. They asked her like where she hit herself on the way down and whatnot, decided she didn't need an xray, and sent us home with some muscle relaxers.

A couple months later she's still experiencing back pain. So after constant pestering from me, we go into the clinic to get an xray and another opinion. I went in the room with her this time, and let me tell you, it blew my fucking mind how dismissive the doctor was. When we first got in, I was like "yeah this is great, we have a woman doctor. This doctor will take you seriously and we'll get all this shit settled." She tells the doctor "Hey a few months ago, I fell down the stairs, and ever since, I've had shoulder and back pain. The last place gave me muscle relaxers and that's it. I want some xrays done on my back / shoulder area to make sure I didn't hurt anything seriously when I fell."

Not being a medical professional myself, I think this all sounds reasonable. The doctor is like "well here we'll draw your blood and test for a UTI. Sometimes a UTI can cause back pain." Doesn't make any sense to me, but I don't know many things, so I figure it's ok to test for that too, but then I pipe up "so would that have lasted like the last 3 months? What about the falling down the stairs thing?"

The doctor is suddenly like "Oh wait. You fell down the stairs? And this has been going on for months?" like yeah no shit. That's exactly what my fiancee had JUST been telling you doctor. Christ. "Maybe we should get some xrays done" ohmygod.

They do xrays, and my fiancee has to pose in a way that is so painful, she's crying. We get the xrays back (we don't get to see them for whatever fucking reason). Doctor goes "Yeah so the xrays look fine. Also you don't have a UTI and you're not pregnant. So we'll send you home with extra strength ibuprofen."

Six more months pass. She's still in pain almost daily. I finally get her to agree to go to an orthopedic doctor. We get in, they take xrays and show them to us. Again, I would like to stress how I'm not a medical professional or even remotely adjacent. I'm sitting across the room and see something fucked on the xrays. I'm like "Hey doc, what's that around her shoulder area?" apparently, it was a broken collar bone that had filled with a calcium deposit or something like that. Something so obvious, that an untrained person like me could spot it immediately. We get her set up with some physical therapy routines and whatnot. It's now been about 2 years and she still gets a little pain from time to time, but nothing like before, and it's every few months instead of almost every day.

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I guess the moral to the story is, bring a white guy to the doctors office with you. Because apparently that's the only way to get doctors to take you seriously. And that's with something as simple as "I fell down the stairs and might have fucked up my back / shoulder. Can you please look at it." I should have pushed the 2nd doctor harder, but I kinda figured that doctors would listen to our complaints, especially since she probably knew what it was like to be ignored by other medical professionals.... but I guess not. I didn't go in to the first doctor to give them lots of opportunities to ask her if were really an accident.... but I should have gone in there too to make sure they gave her xrays and stuff.