Women’s Health & Self-Advocacy: How to Be Heard in Healthcare | Spencer Moore

What does it mean to advocate for yourself as a female patient, especially in healthcare systems that often overlook women’s pain, symptoms, and lived experiences?

In this episode we welcome Spencer Moore, founder and host of The Hairy Chin, certified women’s health coach, certified breast health educator, and certified breathwork specialist, for a powerful conversation about women’s health advocacy, chronic illness, breast cancer, medical dismissal, and learning how to navigate healthcare systems with confidence and clarity.

After years of chronic health struggles and being passed from doctor to doctor as what Spencer calls a “hot potato patient,” she was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer at 40. Her experience transformed the way she approached healthcare, communication, and self-advocacy, and led her to help other women develop the tools to better advocate for themselves in medical settings.

Together, Nina and Spencer explore the grief that can live inside illness, chronic symptoms, medical dismissal, and not being believed. They also discuss practical strategies for navigating doctor appointments, communicating symptoms effectively, recognizing misinformation online, and building trust with your own body.

This episode is especially meaningful for women navigating chronic illness, breast cancer, autoimmune conditions, invisible illness, medical trauma, grief, burnout, or healthcare advocacy.

Key Takeaways

•  Self-advocacy is a skill set that can be learned 
•  Preparation can change the outcome of medical appointments 
•  The language women use in healthcare settings matters 
•  Chronic illness grief deserves recognition and support 
•  There is no single “quick fix” for complex health issues 
•  Trustworthy health advocates acknowledge nuance and uncertainty 
•  AI tools can support research but cannot replace medical care

If you’ve ever felt dismissed, unseen, or overwhelmed inside the healthcare system, this conversation is for you.

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Advocacy Tools by The Hairy Chin

One-page Health Summary

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Connect with Spencer Moore:

Instagram: @the.hairy.chin
YouTube: @thehairychin
Website: thehairychin.com

This episode is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Please consult a qualified healthcare provider regarding your health concerns.

Transcript

called a hot potato patient because they want to bounce me to somebody else. They don't want me to be their problem. I talk about that. I talk about how to navigate healthcare systems that really weren't built for women because we're dismissed and our symptoms and our pain is minimized. And these are skills that we have to learn so that we can participate actively in our healthcare. It's absolutely a necessity these days for women. You just lost your loved one. Now what?

Welcome to the Grief in Light podcast where we explore this new reality through grief-colored lenses. Openly, authentically, I'm your host, Nina Rodriguez. Let's get started. What does it mean to advocate for yourself as a female patient? Hello and welcome back to the Grief in Light podcast. My name is Nina Rodriguez and I'm your host. And today's guest is Spencer Moore. She is the founder of the Hairy Chin podcast. I love the name.

Her work sits at the intersection of women's health and self-advocacy. She is also a certified women's health coach, certified breast health educator, and certified breathwork specialist. If you've been told that advocating for your health is important, but you've never been taught how, if you've ever been misdiagnosed or had symptoms dismissed by medical professionals, or if you're just curious about what it means to advocate for yourself in the healthcare system,

then this episode is for you. You are in for a treat. Spencer, welcome to the Grief and Light podcast. Thank you so much, Nina. It's an honor to be here. It's an honor to have you. for our listeners, this is going to be a little different because we're not talking about loss related to death necessarily. We're talking about living losses and the grief that we feel, particularly as women navigating a system that doesn't quite get us.

I had the pleasure of meeting Spencer related to some work we did with Women Who Podcast magazine, and I'll let her share it. But when I heard her story, I said, my gosh, this is so relatable. There is so much grief in this, and I want you all to hear about it in terms of navigating our health and the health care system. So with that being said, we're not giving you any medical advice. Always consult with your professionals. And if anything, we're here to empower you to consult professionals. Spencer, you've described yourself as a quote unquote, like, hot potato patient.

Tell us about why you use that particular phrase or why you've heard that particular phrase and where did your journey with health and advocacy begin? Right, so I have been called a hot potato patient because I've had a lot of overlapping disease and illnesses and modern medicine is really specialized now and that's part of the reason is because healthcare has become so corporate and so it's become very efficient and very specialized and so

know, looking at the whole body doesn't really happen so often. It's quite hard to find practitioners that are trying to connect everything that's going on. So, you know, endometriosis with migraines, with other hormonal issues like early stage breast cancer, a lot of these are hormone related. And so it's been challenging for me to find doctors that want to look at the whole picture. And so in that regard, I've been called a hot potato patient because they just want to bounce me to somebody else.

They don't want me to be their problem. And sometimes I do find practitioners where they really love digging deep and they are diamonds in the rough for me. And I talk about that. I talk about how to navigate healthcare systems that really weren't built for women because we're dismissed and our symptoms and our pain is minimized. And these are skills that we have to learn so that we can participate actively in our healthcare. It's just...

absolutely a necessity these days for women. So my journey with advocacy and my podcast and The Harry Tin, it started when I was 40. I was diagnosed with early stage breast cancer from my very first mammogram. And I went through some treatment for that and I was really just blown away. I didn't see it coming. I had no idea that it was going to happen to me at 40 years old.

After that, I found a foundation called Know Your Limits. It is a breast cancer prevention foundation. I can't recommend it enough for anybody wanting to learn more about breast cancer prevention. And I became a breast health educator. And when I did that, I was certified through their foundation. And I started giving classes to women to learn about breast health. And I saw this change happen in front of my eyes with these classes. These women would come in and they would say, I'm really nervous to be here.

I actually am really scared to learn about breast cancer. And some women didn't even show. Some women said, like, I just, it's too much for me, but I'd love the Cliff Notes. And by the end of the session, after teaching them about breast self-exams and learning about risks and all of these, you know, really giving the researched information, they would leave excited to share that information with their friends and their daughters and their family.

You know, I've dealt with chronic health issues all of my life, and I just thought there's more that I want to do. I want to share Nutter Limits, but I want to share more. And that was really when I said, I think I might do a podcast. I'm a chatty talker, and I just thought, you know, I think maybe that could be a good format for me.

I love that. Thank you. And Know Your Lemons, I learned about it through you through our past conversation ever since I went on their website, and it is fascinating. Amazing. if you could kind of give a little bit more context about exactly what it is that a breast health advocate does and a little bit of your experience about how you got certified and how you help others through this Sure. So I was really drawn to Know Your Lemons because they have this viral image that...

The founder is Corinne Ellsworth Beaumont, and she lost three very important women to breast cancer in her life. And she decided at that moment, she was a graphic designer, which I really related to because I have been a graphic designer. And she decided to go to school and study further about researching and foundations and being able to spread this awareness. And she started Know Your Lemons. It got really big because she created this viral image of 12 lemons in an egg cart, an egg crate.

and there are actually 12 signs of breast cancer. Many think that it's a lump, but there's actually 12 of them. And she used lemons because lemons aren't restricted, they're not censored. Where lot of parts in the world, you can't talk openly about breasts, you can't show a picture of a breast or an illustration. And she found this incredibly creative way to educate about breast cancer with lemons. And for me,

I was just blown away by the visuals in the first place. And so I went into the website and it said that you could become a breast health educator. And at that time I was just finishing my treatment and I thought I would love to learn more and share more with other women. So I did the certification. was you don't really need to apply. Anybody can become an advocate, an educator.

There's certification that you go through you take some tests during the process quizzes and tests and And then you can set up sessions with friends with family. You can reach out to hospitals They now have tons of other programs available They have programs that you can send to HR representatives at companies and they can do them They also are doing programs for younger girls in school there's so much opportunity to

learn this and to feel confident to go in and teach other women about it. It is such an empowering process. has really given me the foundation to do what I do now with advocating for female health. Thank you for that. And it is beautifully designed in a way that it makes it inviting, not intimidating to talk about breast health and how to self-diagnose or how to even address it with your doctor because

We really, as women, honestly have been on a crappy end of a stick in terms of how we are to feel about our bodies, just in general, even healthy bodies, right? So when we go into a doctor's office, that is usually, and actually I would love for you to touch on this, it is a field where the research has been focused on men up until very, we are just now, now.

starting to do more research on women's bodies. So we have industries, like the beauty industry is just so focused on making us feel inadequate and inappropriate and like something's very wrong with us and every nook and cranny of our body. So then we have to present ourselves at the doctor's office. And you you've done some research about this, but talk to us about how, like, let's name it, right? Like, let's name the fact that it is difficult to show up.

in the office this way as a woman. So talk to us about that. I think that so my first series, my first season of the podcast was more about educating about female-led disease and talking to experts and kind of symptoms and that type of conversations. And I realized after doing about 25 interviews that there was something missing. We have so much information about disease and what does a migraine feel like or

how to find a breast lump, but we don't have a lot of information about how to communicate that to our doctors and what to do next. There's so much of you have to advocate for yourself these days. I hear it all the time and I normally hear it after some horror story that a woman says of this happened to me and you have to advocate for yourself. And so I decided in the second season of the podcast to really look at the skills that women have never been given to describe their symptoms, to

track their symptoms, to prepare for their appointments. The truth is that doctors are trained to receive patients and they are trained to extract that data and that information, but patients are never trained how to share their information with their doctors. So that's where I saw this huge gap. And in doing more research and in learning more about it, there's so many barriers to female health that we aren't talking about. And so I'm really enjoying doing just that and naming them.

One of them that I spoke about recently was vulnerability because body shame is a huge thing that prevents women from talking to their doctors honestly about their health. know, especially when we're talking about trauma survivors or somebody, you know, that doesn't feel comfortable with parts of the body that are private or they feel very exposed. My biggest message that I try and give to women is that

Advocacy is not about your personality, it's a set of skills. And you can learn these skills to be able to go in, even if it's uncomfortable, and say to your doctor, I am having a problem with my vagina. You know, because for some women, they can't even say that word. Or I'm having pain during sex. You know, that may be very uncomfortable to talk about.

My goal is to help women find their voice and find the skills to make it less uncomfortable, to be honest about their health and to kind of be more informed. And it's not informed in terms of information, it's informed in terms of who they are, what they need, what's happening in their bodies, really having that connection with themselves to be able to then go and describe it to somebody that can help them.

Having that language is incredibly empowering because we can often think self-advocacy is almost like, ugh, another thing. Like, I have to put on this armor and fight my doctor and fight the system. And I'm already exhausted even before I begin. So it sounds like, from what you're saying, a lot of this is more, and you've said this on your podcast, it's about clarity. It's not about getting in arguments with anybody. you know, paint a bit of a picture in terms of what self-advocacy, excuse me, self-advocacy actually looks like.

versus what we may have in our minds about what it might look like? Yeah, you know, I think that we do have it in our minds that we have to be aggressive or we have to be educated like a doctor. You know, we have to go at it. Now there's so much access to information with AI. And so we have tons of information at our fingertips and there's lots on social media. I think for me, advocacy is preparation. It's communication.

It is connection with the body. It is learning ways that you can organize so that you go in feeling like you're actively participating in your care. And I find that a lot of women show up to appointments and expect the doctor to manage the appointment. And while this is not wrong, because the doctor is there to help.

We are also part of the equation. Both the doctor and the patient are included in the medical systems. And it is not to discount that there are massive gaps in these medical systems. It's like you said, they were not built with women in mind, with research, with pharmaceuticals. I just saw the other day that there were no crash test dummies with the female body until very, very recently. They only used male anatomy in the crash test dummies. So I mean, this just, it spans out.

But I do think that there are ways that women can participate and feel more in control. And it's not even so much about the control. For me, it's more empowerment. Because when you feel like you're showing up and you're being heard and you're communicating in a way that says, yes, that is how I feel, that is such an amazing feeling. And you just kind of want to keep that ball rolling. Because if we're talking about grief, there's a lot of grief in not just illness, but in

not being heard and being dismissed and in feeling like you are unseen. There can be a lot of grief that comes with that. Absolutely. Thank you. you know, I've spoken with people who have, let's say, lost a parent to a certain type of cancer. And that brings immense health anxiety afterwards because it's like, well, do I carry that gene or do I, am I going to suffer the same symptoms? And then they have to find themselves advocating

a little bit more in terms of, can we look further into the symptom or can we do these other tests? And a lot of doctors lean on the, hey, your labs came back normal. You don't have anything to worry about, Spencer. It's fine. Like, you don't have to look any further because your labs came back normal. What would you say to somebody, let's say, in that situation? So in some of my episodes, I have, in fact, the episode that goes out tomorrow,

I'm talking about communicating with your doctor and ways to present your data in a way that a doctor can interpret it. So if a doctor is dismissive or a doctor says to you, your lives are normal, it's no big deal, being able to respond to that with a bit more clarity of saying, you know, this is a symptom that affects my daily life. It is happening at this frequency in this pattern, and I would like further evaluation. That can really get a doctor's

attention instead of saying, well, I want you to do more. The more clarity you can have around what is happening and the more that you can ask in a direct way, not being aggressive, not yelling. I do think that that does move the needle forward a lot for women. I also think that knowing that you have the right to say, I want testing done because I think that women have been ingrained to

minimize themselves, minimize their symptoms, downplay how they're feeling. There's a lot of, know everybody feels this way, everybody has bad period cramps. There's a lot of this, you don't want to be this whiny woman that women are often labeled as in medical settings. And having that conviction to say, that's not good enough for me, I want more answers. And if you can't get answers from that doctor, if you do have the option of going to another doctor,

that I actually talk about in one of the episodes coming up about asking for a second opinion, because that's a really scary thing to do, it's part of advocating, but it can be really scary for women. It was hard for me, because trust between a doctor and a patient is something that does make the relationship flow more easily. If you really do believe in them, that trust is important, but second opinions are also very important.

And so I do talk about kind of that process and the information you need to ask for, things like that, because these are all skills and they kind of build on each other. It's like habit stacking. Once you have one, then you can kind of start building onto another. And that's really how I've built this second season is it started talking about what actually is health advocacy. It's not about your personality. And I talk about how to prepare for your appointments and how to communicate with your doctors, the verbs that you can use.

One thing I talk about is saying I experience instead of saying I feel, because feel is actually more your interpretation of what's happening to your body. But experience is actually more what is physically happening. And I say that it's annoying that nuance like that in a word can make a difference, but it actually can. Doctors actually respond better when you say I am experiencing pain or I am experiencing fatigue instead of saying I feel tired.

And that makes so much sense. Thank you for that. Because when they ask you, when doctors go through their questionnaire, they usually say, are you experiencing blah, blah, blah, blah, right? full on the blank. So that makes absolutely sense to then talk to them in that language that they understand clinically. And you're saying the same thing. Like, I feel this, but in their language. So it clicks a little bit better. That is important. Those little things make a big difference, like you said.

You provide some incredible tools through your website that help people feel empowered in very straightforward, simple ways where it takes out all the mysticism and all the scary parts, I guess. Could you talk about maybe some of those? I know you released one recently and some are in the pipeline. Yes, they are. So I did release the one that I have out right now is the One Page Health Summary and

These tools that I offer, they're free downloadable cheat sheets and they accompany these advocacy episodes that I do. These are kind of short 10 minute episodes about teaching skills to advocate for female health. I also have conversations with women that kind of explain advocacy in action. And then I do have some interviews with doctors where they really talk about the way that you can talk to them, the way they can help you in an office. And so these PDFs I offer,

The one that is out is the one page health summary. And that really is about preparing for your appointment. Because when you go into an appointment and you're under stress and they are 15 minutes long and maybe the doctor doesn't remember you or what's going on with you, this tiny bit of preparation, writing down the medications and your dosages. The day before, write it on a piece of paper. Write down your allergies. Write down new symptoms.

write down the top three questions that you want answered before you walk out that door. This little bit of preparation can make such a difference for how you enter that appointment, and especially what we talked about earlier, these are vulnerable things. If you feel uncomfortable asking these questions, write them down. When you're in a safe place, you're at home, take the paper and just hand it to the doctor. Don't even have to read it out loud. You can just say,

I'm little uncomfortable asking these, but this is the information I need to know today. And that can just change the game about how you show up. A new episode that's coming out is about communicating with your doctor, I feel versus I experience. I'll have a download about that, other verbs, and kind of this formula that you can use that, kind of like a math formula, to present your symptoms to your doctor. And then a few episodes later, I talk about pain, because pain is one of the areas that

women have been minimized and dismissed. It is just terrible how pain is managed for female health. And so I dig into that a bit and I give ways that you can describe your pain, how you can talk about whether your pain is controlled or it's not, because there's a lot of issues with that as well in healthcare of kind of overprescribing and now underprescribing pain medicine. So I really feel like it's important to have some tangible things.

a lot of information that's new for women and these skills, you know, it's kind of like studying in school a little bit. I hope it's a lot more interesting than that. But sometimes these cheat sheets and these PDFs can just help reinforce it and help women understand that they just, they have to do their work. You know, it's a cross we have to bear and it's unfortunate, but we have to show up because if we don't, we will fall even further through the cracks that are in these systems.

Absolutely, and it is helpful because we can have all the right attitude, but sometimes when we show up and we're actually in the room and they're like, all right, undress yourself. just all of a sudden, the dynamic and the energy and the feeling of empowerment goes out the window. At least it does for me sometimes. You know, you're like, I forgot what I was going to ask them. So having this sheet keeps the conversation focused.

It keeps you empowered. helps remind you what it is that you need to address and what format and what language and all the things. And it is, I actually downloaded the first one today and it's not only beautiful because you do such a beautiful job with your design, but I could see how that is really helpful, straightforward. And it's something that you could even just hand over to your doctor and it will streamline the conversation. You also did the hairy chin.

research, which I found fascinating. And I'm going to read some quick facts here that I found on your website. 60 % of respondents reported delaying or avoiding scheduling a medical appointment due to body self-consciousness. And there's four of these. So I'll read them real quick. 55 % reported withholding a medical question because they felt uncomfortable with their body. 46 % reported delaying or avoiding preventative screening due to body discomfort.

And the raw data showed that 53 % felt uncomfortable discussing vaginal or sexual health concerns with a healthcare provider, which you touched on earlier. So tell us a little bit about how you conducted this research and some of these findings. So this started on Instagram, actually. I saw a reel of this influencer who, I mean, she has a big account, I 150,000 followers, something like that. And she had lost a lot of weight. And she was going to get a tummy tuck.

So she was really concerned about the way they were gonna pull up her skin when they did the tummy tuck. And basically she was really concerned that they were gonna, her pubic hair was gonna come up and be more exposed, like in a bikini or something like that. So she said very clearly in this reel, I am embarrassed to ask my doctor about this. So I'm coming to my audience here on Instagram to see what you think. Do you think it will come up? Have you had a tummy tuck? Do you know?

And now look, I think social media is a beautiful place to go and find information. mean, access information is not a bad thing in female health because there was so much information hidden from women for so long. But now we're in this over saturation of information and that's really overwhelming for women. And my last episode, I talked about red flags of health influencers and green flags of health advocates because there's a huge difference. this girl said this- feel free to-

delve in on those. think that's really important for people to know about the red flags versus green flags. That's a huge topic. Yes, it is a huge topic. so I'll finish with this. I saw this woman and she said she was embarrassed to her doctor. And I thought, how many other women are embarrassed to ask their doctor? And this is a big surgery. A tummy tuck is not. Any time you go under anesthesia, it is a big deal. It is just not anything to take lightly. And it made me think.

How are women interacting with their physicians when it comes to things that they're embarrassed about? So I founded an online website. It's called Prolific. It's a very respected website that you can do anonymous online surveys. So I surveyed 400 women. I wanted to make it quick. It was four questions. And I wanted to know whether body self-consciousness affected female health and how females showed up in their health care. So I ended up asking these questions. I was blown away.

honestly, by the responses because it was overwhelming that women withheld information from their doctors. The one about preventative screening, so there you're talking about mammograms and pap smears. I mean, that was just, that's really terrible. And I mean, I guess I was blown away, but I guess I'm not quite surprised. Honestly, when I did my breast health certification through Know Your Limits,

We did talk about how there's a significant amount of women that do not do mammograms because they do not want their breasts touched or they feel uncomfortable with going in to a room, being unrobed and having somebody else that they don't know see their breasts or touch them. So I did know a little bit about that, but I still was quite shocked that all of them, all of the questions came back more or less 50 % or more.

It's a big barrier. It's like I said earlier, these are real barriers to female health. If we're going to talk about implant service, that's another really big barrier now that we are entering. I mean, we're here, but this over information, too much information. In my episode about the implant service, I talk about how there was this real evolution of corporate takeovers of medical systems. They became more efficient, became much shorter in time, FaceTime with the doctor.

And along the line, women were getting sicker. mean, 75 % of autoimmune disease is female-led. Women are sick. And they are sick with complicated illnesses that the average time to diagnose an autoimmune disease is seven years. So that is seven years of women being sick and not having answers. And so then we kind of have this evolution of the patient voice and social media. And now anybody with social media

is handed a microphone to tell their stories and on social media attention, which a lot of this got is currency. And so then you see this monetization of these accounts and then you see supplements and sales. And now there is real manipulation in the marketing on social media. And my background is a creative professional. So branding, marketing, graphic design, I'm an artist, all these different things. And I know how it works behind the scenes of social media. I've been there.

And it is, it is marketing, it is manipulative marketing. And I find it really frustrating because women want quick fixes these days because they've been promised them. And they think that supplements and protocols are going to fix health problems that have been in the works for decades. These things don't just happen overnight. You know, I find it interesting when women say, I turned 40 and my health just went to complete crap. And it's like,

It didn't really happen at 40. It happened the past 15 years before that. But maybe you just weren't listening. And it's not to say, you know, there's a fine line here because this is not women's fault. And I never want to point the finger to say, well, you weren't listening enough. And this is what happens when you don't pay attention because it's just not that easy. There are a lot of things that sneak up on us. it's, you know, we couldn't have done anything to have changed what can happen in health. It is very much out of our control.

at times. My take on it is we do the best we can and we learn the skills that we can to just show up, you know, show up for ourselves. And even that is a skill for women to learn, to feel like they deserve to take time to go to the doctor, that they deserve to say, nope, I need to get sleep because I'm having chronic migraines and I need to go to bed at this time. Women are not taught

it is not accepted for women to put themselves first. And so that itself is a skill. Thank you. And it reminds me of this conversation I had, can't remember with whom, but that there's a statistic somewhere that women are usually diagnosed, like let's say with certain types of cancer, severity of the cancer that is diagnosed, like the stage, tends to be a little bit more advanced.

than let's say men. So women sometimes end up either passing away or having worse consequences. And men tend to have a bit more time because whatever, you know, there's that joke that men's colds will send them to the hospital and a woman like in labor and she's still working. it's, you know, and I'm speaking very broadly here. So take all of it with a grain of salt because I cannot remember the statistics, but the point being that women

to your point, tend to postpone going to the doctor, postpone trying to get... And it's not completely our fault. It's like trying to get a diagnosis or whatever because of so many hurdles that we have to face. So yeah, it reminded me of that. There are so many barriers in the healthcare system. And I want to point out one thing that I know about you that we didn't touch on before, but you were originally from North Carolina, I believe.

And now you're in Barcelona and we touched on this in a separate conversation about how the two medical systems differ. And it's not necessarily to delve in the technicalities of those, but what I'm curious about is the common ground in self-advocacy, even in completely different systems. Is it the same? Does it differ? And if so, how? Yeah, I think there are.

It is the same and it is different. It's kind of this and that. In the United States now, I haven't been in the States for 10 years, and I've lived in Barcelona since 2016. I did grow up with very chronic health conditions. My first procedure was at eight months old, and I had lots of surgeries growing up. I had really severe ear, nose, and throat issues. And the first 10 years of my life were just in hospitals and surgeries. And so, you know...

I was very fortunate because I come from a medical family and my parents really did lay a very strong foundation for me to advocate for myself because they knew the system and they knew how to navigate it. So for me that was very fortunate. But then evolving into adulthood and having to take over and advocate for myself when my parents had did such a great job, that was really challenging for me. And I had to learn a lot because, you know, I walked into a doctor and they said, have you ever had surgery before? It was like, yes, I've had eight.

Or, oh, have you ever taken steroids or prednisone? And it was like, I have no idea how many times. So many I can't count. So it was always these long histories. And that was very overwhelming for me. The kind of corporate way that hospitals are in the States is the same here. There are a lot of different specializations. And that's where I really struggle is I have an oncologist. I have a migraine neurologist. have a gastroenterologist. I have a dermatologist. They're all these different systems.

The one thing here in Spain that is quite nice is that there's a public health care system and everybody has access to that, which is really helpful. And that is centralized. So any appointment that you go to, any medication that they prescribe, is all in one place. You can access it online. And it's really wonderful how it is just so in one place. I love that. What I will say about the public health system that has taught me a lot is that it's slow. And so...

when you ask for an appointment, it could be six to eight months before you get an appointment. So for example, a dermatology appointment, you might ask in February and you might get the appointment in October. So that is your one shot when you go in that room to talk to that doctor. And there is not a reception desk or a support email. And once you walk out, you are walking out until you walk in the next time, which could be another eight months. So it really taught me how important

organization and preparation is for showing up in front of doctors. And I think that that can lateral, even for the appointments, as you can get easily. Showing up prepared, it's not going to harm you. It's just going to, I believe that it can only help you in the way that you communicate. I think that in the States, it's harder for me to know now. The insurance there is just so complicated and things are approved and denied.

I've dealt with insurance problems here because I actually do have public and private insurance here. mean, the private insurance here is, I think it's 70 euros a month. So I mean, it's a different ball game than it is in the United States and I'm self-employed. So if I was self-employed in the States with private health insurance, it'd be a very different story, especially with my medical background. We deal with authorizations. When I had my stereotactic biopsy for my early stage breast cancer, I think I had eight authorizations for that.

because I kept having not the right paperwork and this and that. So that still happens. There are just so many skill sets that you can do here that you can use in all healthcare systems. And you'll encounter every type of doctor. I I've encountered doctors that said, I can't help you. Here in Spain, they just look at me, I show them everything and they say, I...

I'm not the right doctor for you. Or you encounter them that they really want to dig deep and they really want to help find these, you know, root causes and things like that. But the most that we can control as women is how we show up. Everything else is just completely out of our control. And there's a lot of acceptance in that. There's acceptance in knowing that this doctor may not find my cure. This doctor may not be able to help me. You know, I talked about quick fixes earlier and women's health is layered.

That's why we've been left out of medical trials and pharmaceutical trials is because we have so many variables. And there's an acceptance that has to kind of play a part in this conversation of realizing that I may not get the answers that I want. And even more talking about that is that there's grief in that because a lot of women are very sick and they don't get to live the lives that they want or that they expected or they dreamed.

And even further than that, talking about female fertility, I mean, there's a lot of loss in that of women who cannot get pregnant. So I think that the health care systems anywhere are going to have flaws and holes and gaps. And all we can do as women is just show up the best that we can.

Thank you. for whatever it's worth, I've found here what I've experienced, I'll speak for myself, even PCPs, there'll be a three to four month delay sometimes. having to navigate the insurance companies and having to navigate everything else just adds a layer that is incredibly overwhelming. And what I find a lot of people doing is...

There's these online tests that you could take for some biomarkers, and then they take the results and instead of going to their doctor or in addition of going to their doctor, they'll go to Chagypt or Claude and enter all their information. And ironically, they find some of them find really, really helpful answers. So I'm curious about your take about self-advocacy, know, healthcare results, all the things and the use of AI in today's, you know, world.

I love all these questions you're asking because a lot of them relate to episodes in the podcast. So whatever my answers are, I definitely will be diving deeper into a lot of future episodes and some of the past ones that I've already released. I am having an episode come out about advocating for your health online and researching. I've worked as a copywriter. I am a writer. And so I love research. That's why I did my survey. And I love statistics. And this is a really important topic because

There's a lot I think that the general population perhaps may not understand about how AI works. And it really is fantastic. It can save lives, but it can also really misinform. AI sources the whole internet. And it does kind of this thing where it gives you the information that is the most relevant to what you're searching or perhaps has been the most spread around the internet. But that means that all these health influencers that are sharing all of these things, it's sourcing that also.

So there is a way to research in AI that kind of limits the boundaries and the parameters a little bit, right? So it can say, actually, I really only want information from research studies, or I only want information from these types of people. It's really important to narrow what it's searching to be able to give you a bit more information. Now, I've kind of done things where I've tricked AI. I actually...

Last year I fell and I broke my wrist and I was concerned about having a fracture in my hand. It's called scaphoid fracture and those are really hard to recover from. A lot of women actually have them. when you fall flat on your palm and I had a radial fracture. But I was curious what AI would tell me because I knew what I'd been diagnosed with. I knew I didn't have a fracture there. And when I put my x-ray into ChachiBD,

It came up with all these things that it saw on the x-ray that were not there. It was not what I had been diagnosed with. And now look, I do think that AI is really great, but I also think that AI is widening the gap between the patient and the trust between the patient and the doctor. And that's part of just the broken medical system. Women have been dismissed, they've been minimized, they don't trust their doctors anymore, and now they have access to so much information with AI.

that they don't really have to trust their doctors, right? Because they can double check everything or they can check things out first online, but it's not a perfect system. And AI is not perfect. And the things it tells you is not always perfect. And so having this blind trust that AI is going to get it right every time and that the information it shares with you is going to be 100 % correct is just not the reality. Now look.

it could become the reality in a very short period of time because AI is just, it's like compounding interest. It's going so fast. But that's not where we are now. And I think it's very important for women to accept that they still do need this interaction with their doctor. They still need to learn these skills. And actually in an episode that will release soon, I say that no matter where you get your health online, if it's in AI, if it's on social media,

you inevitably will have to be face to face with a doctor because you can't get prescriptions online. You can't get treatments or diagnoses online that then lead to treatments that can solve them. Eventually, you will have to communicate with a doctor. So building those skills to able to do that and with the help of AI, I fully believe in it. But I just know that it's not this end-all perfect system that I think some

people believe it is. Absolutely. And thank you for that distinction. I also see it, for example, in the grief context, a lot of people trusting AI to walk them through their grief. And while it offers some helpful tools, the AI, there's been articles about, for example, I think it was Chad Gbt, it's a positive feedback loop that feeds you exactly what you want to hear sometimes and more of what you want to hear. if anything, can help you spiral in the wrong direction with

maybe the best of intentions design is question mark, I don't know. But I could imagine how it does foster that gap in trust between patient and doctors. And I am seeing that. there's even memes about doctors sitting there staring at their patient saying, well, Chet GPT told me. And the doctor's like, well, what did I go to school for? So there's that gap. it's

Everything in moderation, everything with nuance, everything with context, and there are some tools that are better than others. I like that you said that you can narrow it down by category of what type of resources you want them to quote versus just give me a free for all. I think that's really important, but it's good to know these things. I think it is important to know where you're getting your information and that there is room for error, there is nuance, and you still have to talk to your doctor. So I thank you for that.

You know, by now people have gotten a picture of like who you are and what tools you can empower people with. But if they wanted to learn more about your work and listen to your podcast and connect with you, where can they do that? So you can find my podcast on most major platforms, Apple, Spotify, it's Amazon, iHeart. You should be able to find it wherever you listen to your podcast. I do have the harryton.com, my website.

where everything is kind of there. You can find out about my mission and my backstory. Like you said, there are my resources there and my research. I also have a newsletter sign up. My newsletter goes out weekly and it kind of is a background into some of the episodes that I do. It has links, it has resources. And so I love to be a bit more casual and just talk about the process of why I'm doing these episodes. And...

And I do have an Instagram account. It's at the Harry Chen with dots with periods, the period Harry, period Chen. And I'm on YouTube this year now. I've just started releasing video format on YouTube. So if you want to watch the episodes, then you can do that there. Perfect. Of course, those will be linked in the show notes. I love your branding. I love the way that you present your episodes are very clear. They're easy to, to

absorb if you will because they're not super lengthy and they're not super complicated. It's almost like a translation between the medical side and the patient advocacy side which is really, really helpful. I do find all of that really helpful. And I have to ask for our listeners who are probably very curious, where did the name come from? I love it. I get it. But I would love your take on where did the name come from.

So it's actually really funny when I say the name to men when they ask me, like, what's the name of your podcast? They kind of say like, OK. They don't really. And then I say to women and they all laugh or they say, that's amazing. So when I was 18, I was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome. And I talk about this in my very first episode of the podcast that I was in the senior girls bathroom in high school.

And I was kind of in there looking in the mirror with some girls next to me. And one of the girls said, you have like a hair that's on your chin. And she went to take it off. Like it was one of my hairs. And it didn't move. And she was like, my gosh, it's on your chin. So, you know, sometimes we bury these things. We think about these things and they kind of, you know, they just kind of get buried deep.

I've had shenares since I was 18, and now in my 40s, I'm getting more and more. They just come overnight. And so when I was thinking about doing a female health podcast, I was trying to think about what are these things that we are ashamed of as women, that these stigmas that we try and hide or we try and avoid, even though we all have them. And I really wanted the name to have some transparency. And I also think for me, it was kind of a way to let...

that story go, let that feeling go of feeling so embarrassed in that moment when that happened to me at 18 years old. And I thought, you know, the Harryton, I just think that it just, it felt cathartic and it felt honest. So yeah, I've really, I don't think I realized how much of a response I would get from women when I decided to name it that. And since then it's just really landed well and that makes me really happy.

I absolutely love it. it is one of those things that I would say most women, if not all, would get just from hearing the name. It's like, yes, this is, we get this. We've all been there. Most of us have been there anyway. And we're getting to the end here, but I want to get, I want to go back to the red flags versus green flags so that we can leave our audience with some context for what to look out for, not just with influencers, but even doctors. So.

What are some red flags perhaps that if your doctor or if you hear an influencer say X, Y, Z, you should proceed with caution? And what are some green flags of, this person knows what they're talking about? At least something that maybe you do for yourself to get that disarmament. So I think there's actually a really clear way to tell a difference between an influencer and advocate. And an influencer is

more into sales than they are into solutions. So if they are positioning themselves as the only person that has the answer and that what they have is the only answer, then that is just my red flag to just run away. And I have some phrases like quick fixes or lose a certain amount of weight in a certain amount of days. I mean, I could go on and actually I did in the episode, but...

You know, these set up these expectations for women that are just so unfair. And even when they offer these solutions, I guarantee so many of the listeners have bought something that then they use and it doesn't work for them. Or, you know, it makes their symptoms worse. Or it doesn't improve what they're promising it will improve. It's because these are sold to everybody. And female health, as we've talked about, is nuanced and layered. And it's very individual. So...

I find that if anybody is offering the singular solution and it's only theirs, because as I explain having a marketing background, I see there's a formula to marketing on social media and the formula involves being the only one that has the answer. Because then people think, I have to get it from her. I have to get this supplement. I have to do her class or I have to take her course because she's the only one that will solve this. And it's real manipulation.

So advocates, in my opinion, are really amazing at understanding the complexity of female health. And they will say things like, I don't know. Or they will say, the research is mixed on this. Or perhaps you need to see this person or that person. Or they will collaborate with other advocates and talk about the nuances and the complexities of female health. Those are people that I think are very trustworthy.

And those are my green flags of I wanna know more because there is not one single person that can solve all of your health problems with a supplement or a detox or, know, I mean, it's just, it's amazing to me kind of this ability for people to say, have the solution for your body when they know nothing about your body, right? So, yeah.

So then having that discernment in a world that wants quick fixes, quick answers, and same results is a growing challenge, I would say. even read an article this morning how Gen Z, the younger one, and Gen Alpha, they're more trusting of influencers because they've grown native to that environment. even in some of these apps, you can sell products. And if you like the influencer and the influencer selling you this product, then the barrier, that discernment in that

question mark that many older generations have that distress, don't know if you want to call it that. They don't have because they're more native. It's not that they don't have it, it's just that it's less. They're more trusting of the environment. They're more trusting of, I like this person, so I'm going to buy from them. I really don't care. So it's going to be interesting to see how that plays out, especially with younger generations in a world that's increasingly more digital. So TVD on all of that.

And I love that you're covering so much of this on the second seizing of your podcast. Congratulations. That's amazing. you. We talked about this in the conversation with Women Who Podcast magazine, but I do want to include it here as well, which was, how do you discern what guests you have on your podcast? Because you did mention that just because somebody has hundreds of thousands of followers doesn't necessarily make them an authority in XYZ subjects. So how do you have discernment?

of who gets to share their information on your podcast. Right. I appreciate the question. You know, I really do believe that sharing any sort of health information online is such a huge responsibility. And like you said at the beginning of the podcast, this is not medical advice and this is educational. And I really do believe that in my platform that I am not here to tell you what to do with your body. I'm here to teach you skills so you can do what's right for you and your body.

So you have the conviction to say, is how I can listen to my body, this is how I can communicate. And I search for people on my podcast that are advocates, that do realize the complexities. Like I said earlier, we have something in the marketing world called social proof. And social proof means that somebody has a lot of followers and it makes people believe that they are the expert or that they are the person that you should follow. And now, look, there are some amazing doctors, there are some amazing

people out there that have millions of followers for a reason. But there are also people out there that play the marketing game, they play the algorithm, and they get a lot of followers, and they are just, what they sell and what they share, to me sometimes it's cringe-worthy. like, oh gosh, I just, I don't think that people should trust this person. So, you know, I really do try and go.

to a lot of different places. I'm not always looking on Instagram, although I do find, I found amazing guests on Instagram that I've interviewed. I look a lot of different places. I reach out, I email, I network on LinkedIn, because I just believe that it's really important to share information that is trustworthy. I can't guarantee anything. I can't promise you that my guest is the best of the best.

But I do believe in finding advocates. And that to me is just such a big difference than finding somebody that has 300,000 followers and sells their own supplement line and just monetizes every which way. That's not something that I believe in.

We appreciate that discernment and you're absolutely right. I wish people would understand this more not just on the marketing side But even as podcasters as two women podcasters here on you know speaking today We understand deeply that everybody anybody can get on a microphone and say the wildest things with an authoritative tone in their voice and it's very factual and they presented with very good marketing and it sounds it looks very official

And so we could see how this can bypass some of those mechanisms for discernment that each of us has. And so we invite you to have that discernment and do your own research and look for information. you know, Spencer, as somebody who has been on the patient side for so much of your life, you have some understanding, you have a lot of understanding, many people do not about how to do this and what to watch out for.

the things that maybe you've fallen for in the past and the things that have worked for you. So that alone is an authority in terms of, you know, this is what's worked for me and let me pass on this information to people that may need it. So I thank you for just that. Yeah, I appreciate that. You know, a lot of what I share is lived experience, but it's also a lot of the interviews and a lot of the women that I've spoken with.

over the past few years of being a female advocate, and it's also what I'm learning. Every conversation that I have, I learn something new, and I'm trying to just pay it forward with that information so that women can develop these skills and learn also.

Absolutely. And today, for example, I learned to switch the word I feel to I experience. So even just for my next appointment, I'm experiencing fill in the blank. And so that's really helpful. That's even one of the many takeaways that we can share with our audience today, which I absolutely love. We're at the end here. I would love to give you the room to say anything that maybe we didn't touch on that you want to include in the conversation. And if not, we consider it complete. Yeah, I think we touched on so much. You know, it was a...

I think I talked a lot. Yeah, I think that there's just, FEMA health is very layered and appreciating and understanding, being transparent, thinking about what are the barriers to your health in your healthcare? Are there things that you feel uncomfortable talking about and kind of digging through the onion and peeling the layers back to help shine some light on those areas that are preventing you from getting the care that you need? That could be busy schedules, prioritizing yourself.

communicating with your doctor. There are lot of barriers. And I just think even thinking about it is a great first step.

Perfect. And final question, what would Spencer today say to the version of Spencer after getting the cancer diagnosis? it's a kind of emotional question. think she would be really proud of what she's doing. And I think she would just say, keep going. Because I know I'm a different person now than I was then. And yeah, I think she would say, keep going.

Thank you so much, Spencer. It's been an absolute honor. Thank you so much for the work that you're doing and for being you. Thank you so much. It's been a great conversation. I loved it. That's it for today's episode. Be sure to subscribe to the Grief and Light podcast. I'd also love to connect with you and hear your thoughts and your stories. Feel free to share them with me via my Instagram page at griefandlight, or you can also visit griefandlight.com for more information and updates.

Thank you so much for being here, for being you, and always remember, you are not alone.