10/19/2025                                                                            
                                    
                                                                            
                                            Patients Deserve Better!
Dr. Lauren Wostrel, who manages our women's health for our region discusses feeling discouraged by the medical field and the struggles patients face due to feeling dismissed.
"I feel like so many patients just, the discouragement and the struggle right now is they feel so dismissed in medicine in general."
Dr. Wostrel advocates for direct primary care, emphasizing the importance of conversations, relationships, and exploring options in a partnership with the patient, also expressing disappointment with sterile medical interactions.
"That's why we do direct primary care so we can hang out and talk to people, get to know people 'cause medicine is a lot more than just, "Hey, what are your symptoms on this checklist? Let's give you a pill." It's, it's a conversation, it's a relationship, it's getting to know your patient. It's kind of exploring all the options with them 'cause it is a partnership with the patient. The discouragement in what the medical field has become for most patients and the interactions with doctors or even other providers is just very sterile, almost uncaring.
Dr. Lauren Wostrel explains her decision against insurance-driven practices, as she doesn't want to rush conversations, especially in sensitive situations like cancer diagnoses.
" I don't want that at all because we're talking about, know, sometimes life or death situations. Sometimes we're, um, sitting down giving someone a cancer diagnosis and it's not just something to be checked off my to-do list and my schedule."
Dr. Wostrel emphasizes the need for dedicated patient time, suggesting a more empathetic approach involving blocking off time and providing support during difficult conversations.
"That's like, let's block off an hour, let's have a box of tissues, let's talk about this and work through this. I feel like so many patients just, the discouragement and the struggle right now is they feel so dismissed in medicine in general."
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