Meet Katie Birmingham.

At 21 years old, she lives with a surgical feeding tube.

For years, doctors told her that her symptoms were "just anxiety." While she was dismissed, minimized, and sent home, her body was quietly deteriorating. By the time she finally received real answers — POTS, hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, MALS, and SMA Syndrome — the damage was done.

A story published yesterday in Parade magazine tells her story. It is worth every word. (Full story: https://parade.com/health/katie-birmingham-chronic-illness-medical-gaslighting-zebra)

Katie describes navigating the medical system in Missouri as "almost a full-time job." She is 21.

Doctors are taught: "When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras." They assume the simple explanation. They don't look deeper. And patients like Katie pay for that assumption with their health, their dignity, and sometimes their lives.

But medical gaslighting isn't always just negligence. Sometimes it is deliberate. Sometimes records are falsified. Sometimes outside characterizations follow a patient from provider to provider, poisoning every clinical encounter before they even walk through the door. That is medical blacklisting — and that is why this petition exists.

These providers face no consequences. Patients face feeding tubes.

That has to change. Accountability is not optional.

Thank you for signing. Please share this petition with everyone you know: https://www.change.org/End_Medical_Blacklisting

For the zebras,

Amy