Why You Haven’t Found an IBD Doctor You Love (and it’s not what you think)
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In this powerful episode of The Cheeky Podcast for Moms with IBD, I’m sharing the eye-opening, “a-ha” moment I had recently that explains why so many women with IBD struggle to find a doctor they truly love. After decades of navigating the healthcare system and searching for the right provider, I finally uncovered a startling truth about IBD care. And it’s one that impacts women across the country (possibly the globe) and shapes the way we advocate for our own health.
This episode is packed with insights that will resonate if you’ve ever felt frustrated, dismissed, or overlooked by your gastroenterologist. We’re exploring the nuances of women’s IBD care, the gaps in traditional medical approaches, and why finding a provider who truly understands your experience can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack.
Tune in As We Talk About:
✅ [02:12] My decades-long journey navigating traditional IBD care and why most doctors never earn my trust.
✅ [05:15] The biggest barriers women face when seeking GI providers who understand our unique needs.
✅ [08:43] How gender and IBD intersect, and why women’s digestive health presents distinct challenges.
✅ [12:11] The jaw-dropping stats about female IBD specialists at top medical institutions and what that really means for women like us.
✅ [18:07] Why hope and action go hand-in-hand — and how stepping up as your own advocate has the ability to transform your care.
✅ [20:22] How to navigate the crowded, competitive space of female IBD specialists and still thrive.
✅ [21:53] The power of community, sharing your experience, and lifting each other up as IBD warriors.
And so much more…
This episode isn’t just about pointing out the problems — it’s a call to action. If you’ve ever felt frustrated with your care, dismissed by your doctor, or unsure how to advocate for your needs, this episode is your roadmap to stepping into your own power and taking charge of your IBD journey.
Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
- The Gut Love Community Newsletter: KarynHaley.Community
- Episode 102 of The Cheeky Podcast: “Powerful IBD Treatments You’ve Never Heard Of”
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Episode Transcript:
Karyn Haley [00:00:08]:
Hey there, mama. Welcome to season two of the Cheeky Podcast for Moms with ibd. I’m Karyn Haley, functional IBD nutrition and wellness coach and Crohn’s warrior. This podcast is all about us moms because our IBD plays by different rules. Season two is juicy, full of unconventional wisdom, real talk, new ways to tackle our illness, and a whole lot of community empowerment. And all of us advocating the hell out of our illness. We’re in this together, and I’m here to help you find healing on your terms. Let’s do this.
Holy cow. I just had the biggest kapow, mind blowing epiphany of my life and I just have to share it with you. And so I wasn’t even planning on creating, writing a podcast episode on this particular issue, but I had this aha, light bulb moment and I just started writing all my thoughts on paper, you know, like journal style. So after I was done, I reread it and I realized it was. It was the kind of information that I want to share with you in a very powerful cheeky podcast episode. So today, that’s what I’m going to do. I am going to share with you what led to my aha Moment. And I’m going to take you behind the scenes a little bit into the thought process that went into all of this.
[00:01:41]:
So go ahead, grab a cup of tea, settle in with me for a great story and even a greater lesson. A lesson that we can all learn from. Okay, so here’s the situation. My traditional gastro doctor who specializes in IBD just up and left the practice abruptly, no warning. One day there, the next, poof. Gone. So cue me scrambling to find a new doctor. And here’s the thing.
Honestly, I have never been a huge fan of any of my western IBD doctors. Never. And as you might already know, I’ve had Crohn’s for almost 40 years. And during that time, we moved a lot. Military life took us all over the globe to seven different places. Since my hubby and I wed in 1998, we moved all across the continent. And throughout these moves, I never found a traditional GI doc that I actually loved. You know, like one I would rave about.
[00:02:47]:
Not once. Not once. Now, don’t get me wrong. I have found GI focused naturopaths and functional medicine providers and integrative doctors. You know, the ones who are in that more holistic space, that eastern space of medical providers. And I will rave about them. I rave about them so much that I share them with you all the time. But Your traditional Western GI doc? No, just never.
[00:03:16]:
Not in any of the places we ever lived. And I know that many of you feel the same way about not having a gastrointestinal doctor that you love or even, like, for that matter. You know, when I work with clients, I would say about 95% tell me that they strongly dislike their doctor as well. And some even stop going altogether because. And I’m just going to put it in their words, in their words, their doctor sucks. So we just have to sit with that. Let’s sit with that for just a second. So they’re saying that their doctor just sucks.
Sucks so much that they just stop going. Now, in my opinion, everyone with IBD needs a gastro doctor, some kind of gastrointestinal doctor connection, someone who can catch you when something medically critical happens. But often the experience of going to see our doctor, it’s so awful. We don’t trust our doctors. We feel like they push their own agenda. We are treated like we’re just a number, and they don’t listen to what we’re saying and they don’t get where we’re coming from. So, like I said, it’s so bad that sometimes you literally, you just can’t do it. So you just stop going. [00:04:39]:
And to me, that is chilling, it’s scary, it’s disheartening, and it’s really disappointing. So there I was, I was trying to find yet another IBD focused doctor. And let me tell you, it was roadblock, roadblock after roadblock. And it’s not like I couldn’t find a gastroenterologist. I mean, they exist, okay, in the United States. They’re. They’re a dime a dozen. But everyone that I was finding, they were just so underwhelming. [00:05:15]:
And there are reasons for that. There’s reasons that they’re underwhelming. Some, they didn’t have the experience or the credentials that I was looking for. And I’m the first to say that, yes, I. I am very, very picky when it comes to that. But then some had reviews that would make me go, no, I’m not even going to risk it. Because if you can’t get your patients to at least, like, you write a okay review about you, then are you even worthy of my time? And then the biggest roadblock, the biggest roadblock of all for me is that simply many weren’t female IBD providers. Yeah, I said it. [00:05:55]:
I said it. Stone me if you’re offended. But here’s the reality. The reality is that that matters to Me, they weren’t female. And why does that matter? Because believe it or not, medically, IBD shows up differently for women than men. It really does. Hormones, reproductive organs, the gut, brain connection, you know, how we see the world the way men see the world is different. Right? Men are from Mars, women are from Venus. [00:06:27]:
It all just adds up to women’s IBD needs being unique. And I talked about this very topic on a pod episode with Dr. Ilana Gurevich. She’s one of the top naturopathic IBD specialists in the country. If you want to, you can check that show out. I’ll leave a link for the show notes. I’ll leave a link in the show notes if you want to check that one out. It’s a. [00:06:53]:
It’s a great conversation. I highly recommend it. So knowing all of this, knowing what I know about IBD showing up differently for women, how it kind of just shows up differently for us. I was searching for a female provider because they are more likely to be someone who, I don’t know, just gets it. Someone who understands our biology, our hormones or menstrual cycles, pregnancies, infertility struggles, and even menopause and how that influences our ibd. And I have found that finding a female provider in my holistic provider practice category, like those kind of practitioners, I have found that that can make all the difference in the world. And so I’m guessing if you’ve listen this far, if you’re still with me, I’m betting that this just kind of resonates with you. I bet it resonates with you as well. [00:07:53]:
Because who can better understand your unique IBD challenges than another woman? And so this time I thought, I thought that since I wasn’t having any luck finding a provider locally, I thought, well, why not just aim for the best, no matter where they are? I’m just, I just want the best provider. I don’t even need to see them that often. Right. And telehealth is always an option. So after researching where the top IBD facilities are, according to most of the Internet sources, I looked at the top of the heap is the IBD department at the Mayo Clinic. That’s the preeminent medical institution. It’s in the United States. So to me, that it wasn’t that surprising hearing that statistic. [00:08:43]:
And with the Mayo Clinic, I have this kind of added bonus in my favor because my hubby, he gets his cancer treatment there. So I was thinking maybe we can make our appointments together, you know, like the couple who goes to the doctor together type of scenario. So I could feel it, I could feel it in my bones. I felt like, okay, this is going to help me find a female IBD specialist at the Mayo Clinic. This is in my grasp. Okay, so this is where the story gets really interesting. So if you’ve been sipping your tea, if you’ve been driving in your car, if you’ve been doing the laundry, this is the moment. This is, we’re getting to the climax of the story. [00:09:22]:
So if you have been multitasking, come back to me, come back to me because we’re about to hit this bam, light bulb moment. And it has to do with the fact that I finally get why you and I have never been able to find a traditional GI document that we rave about. Okay, here it is. There are 175 gastrointestinal doctors listed on the Mayo Clinic directory. So on their website, on the directory, there’s 175 GI docs. Out of 175 doctors, guess how many are female? Go ahead, you can think about it for a second. You can press pause if you need to. 175 GI doctors, how many are female? That’s my question for you. [00:10:12]:
I’m going to tell you, I’m not going to make you wait any longer. I’ll tell you how many. Only 37%. 37 friggin percent. 37% of that number. It just is crazy to me. So I just have to keep saying it like as I can’t believe it, just 65 out of 175 doctors in GI GI department are female. Now keep in mind this stat is 37%. [00:10:41]:
I just want to give this disclaimer here. It might change over time. It might get lower, it might get larger. But currently, at the time of this recording, only 37% are female. And so that’s interesting, right? It’s interesting because it’s low. It’s interesting, but it’s not groundbreaking yet. Because what we have to keep in mind is that not all of these docs, not all of them in the gastrointestinal department, not all of them specialize in ibd, right? Because some focus on colon cancer and motility disorders and bariatric surgery, celiac, so many digestive ailments out there. When you narrow down the numbers to include female providers who specialize in adult IBD, our 37% number, which in my opinion is already way low, if you ask me, that number shrinks and it shrinks a lot. [00:11:40]:
And I’m not even going to ask you to Guess this time, like, you don’t even have to think about how much it shrinks, because this is the point where I just was like, oh, my gosh, this is crazy. So out of 175, I got to go back to that 175 number. Out of 175 GI providers at the Mayo Clinic, only seven. I can count it on two hands. Only seven are females specializing in IBD. Seven. Yeah, that’s right. Seven. [00:12:11]:
Seven out of 175. And that in percentage terms, my friend, maybe you’re doing the math already. And you know, that is 4%. 4% of their GI staff. 4%. That’s it. That’s the number that really blew me away. That’s your reality, Mama. [00:12:32]:
That’s my reality. So that was like, light bulb, aha moment. The chances of finding a female IBD provider are basically like finding a needle in a haystack. And that’s why it’s so hard to find a GI doctor you actually love. A doctor who empathizes with you. A doctor who doesn’t brush off your concerns, pretending it’s all in your head. A doctor that doesn’t blame your anxiety for every ailment that comes your way. That’s why you can’t find a doctor who considers the impact of your hormones and your pregnancies, your infertility, your menstrual cycle and menopause, and how all of that plays a role in how your IBD shows up in your body. [00:13:23]:
And of course, it’s got to be said that I know it seems like I’m picking on the Mayo Clinic, seems like I’m picking on them here, but the stats aren’t unique to them. I was wondering, as I’m. As I’m doing this research, as I’m looking at it, I’m thinking, is Mayo an anomaly? So I did some more research, and this information, it’s consistent across other premier IBD centers as well. Johns Hopkins, Cleveland Clinic, Mount Sinai, Mass General. This is an industry problem. It’s not a one hospital problem. It’s an industry problem, not a one hospital problem. Now, I’m going to be really honest with you, my love. [00:14:08]:
Having this light bulb moment, at first, it made me really, really angry. I mean, obviously, right? You’re probably not happy about that stat either. Like, I was pretty much fuming, effing furious. But mostly, mostly, when I identified what emotion I was really feeling about this, it just made me sad. Made me sad for me. It made me sad for you. Sad for all the women who deserve a top tier, knowledgeable, empathetic IBD provider who truly understands their body. Because if we are never given access to the highest caliber of IBD doctor, one who truly understands our uniquely female needs, are we going to then go through our whole IBD life, never, never really getting the care that we deserve? You know, globally, female physicians, they make up somewhere around 45 to 52% of all doctors, depending on the source. [00:15:13]:
It kind of. It’s within that range, though. And yet only. So that’s like half, right? So only 4% of the adult IBD specialists at the Mayo Clinic are female. And so that brings us to why, why is this a thing? Why aren’t there more women gastroenterologists specializing in Crohn’s and colitis? Well, this is still just. I actually, it’s just kind of like fresh in my mind for me, and I kind of think that I’m gonna have to just sit with this. It’s gotta marinate, right? I gotta sit with it for a bit. I gotta sit with it for a little bit longer to really form a full fledged opinion. [00:15:55]:
I do think I have a working theory. I have a few working theories, actually. I think that, number one, I think that inflammatory bowel disease, it’s not a sexy disease. It’s not as sexy as those heavily female dominated fields of dermatology, pediatrics, gynecology, where female physicians own the space. I think, number two, women with ibd, they aren’t encouraged to talk about their GI issues. Bloating, gas, constipation, diarrhea. Instead, they’re, if you’re a woman especially, they’re whispered about. What female doctor would want to enter the job market where the myriad of challenges that are dealt with are only whispered about or in a lot of cases, not talked about at all? And I also think, number three, this is my number three thought that I was having about this. [00:16:51]:
Proctologists, which essentially those are butt doctors and colorectal surgeons. Well, let’s just say that they’re the butt of many doctor jokes. And so that’s not going to attract many female providers their way. And then number four, my last thought on this is that as you know, and as I well know, ibd, it’s the invisible illness. It’s the invisible illness. Just like our pain and our suffering are invisible. Now, I wish that I could tell you that I had the solution. I wish I could tell you I have the solution to all this. [00:17:30]:
Because so often, whether it’s on the podcast or it’s in a gut love community newsletter. I’ll mention some kind of IBD challenge to you and then I’ll say, you know, I’ve got a resource to help you with that, something that we’re all dealing with. I’ve got a resource to help you with that. And I wish I could tell you that your IBD doctor experience, I wish I could tell you it’s going to get better real soon. But honestly, I don’t see this pattern within the medical field changing anytime soon. But here’s what I can offer you today. What I can offer you is both. It’s two things. [00:18:07]:
It’s both hope and a little bit of action. So hope that if you come into your own right, if you come into your own, an action in the form of unleashing that fierce IBD gal that I know is within you. If you do those two things, I know without a shadow of a doubt that this isn’t all lost for you, Dear One, all this information means is that it’s time for you to step up. It’s time for you to step up into hope and into action. It’s time for you to step up and take charge of your own medical care. It’s time to step up and embrace being your number one advocate. Can I get an amen for that? It’s time to step up, to see your provider as the very intelligent, amazing consultant that they are, but not the God or the end all be all arbiter of your life. Instead, though, as someone who imparts guidance and medical expertise, it’s time to step up and do your own research. [00:19:20]:
And it’s time to step up and become so freaking educated about your own body that every twitch, every ache, every pain, it means something to you. It’s time to step up. Stepping up is the antidote to our lack of quality IBD female providers. That mythical perfect provider. They aren’t waiting in the wings, the doctor you’ve been hoping and waiting for. It exists in very small numbers in the IBD space and there’s a lot of us clamoring to try to get into her door. Which is why even after I found a female IBD specialist I thought would have what I like to call perfect provider potential, perfect provider potential. I had to go down my list and then accept my third choice because my first two had a practice so full they weren’t accepting new patients. [00:20:22]:
And that’s why it is now taking me five months to even get into to see my third choice provider, the female IBD provider. Space is limited and it’s overcrowded But. But I still believe with all my heart, I still believe that you can heal, mama. You can still thrive. You can still live the life that you are meant to live with balance and lightness and peace, remission and vitality. I guess what I’m saying is that you can still be the badass B+IBD mama you were destined to be. Now, if this light bulb experience, if it’s taught me anything, it’s taught me that we need to lean on each other more than ever. We truly are in this together. [00:21:16]:
We need to see each other as the person that helps us get through the ups and the downs of this crazy illness. So let’s support each other. Let’s reach out. Let’s support each other. And if you feel moved by what you’ve heard today, I want you to share this information because it’s just so stinking valuable. Share this information with each other because we can really learn from this. We can grow from this. And through it, I feel like we, we can then support each other in an even more meaningful way. [00:21:53]:
Through the missteps, the mistakes, but also through the triumphs and the wins and the transformations. So promise me, dear one, promise me no more hiding and no more skipping appointments. No more taking the measly scraps that we get from medical providers who don’t quite make the IBD grade. We cannot stand for second rate care. We can demand better and we can be empowered and emboldened to educate the providers that we do have because they will be better for it. When we, as the patient, when we step up, we are going to get better care. And hey you lovely gal, listening or watching this episode, young person that you are, go to medical school. How about it? Go to medical school, become a gastroenterologist who specializes in Crohn’s and colitis. [00:22:50]:
Because we need you. Our community needs you now more than ever. And now, my friend, I want to hear from you. Has this been your experience in the world of ibd? Does what I’ve talked about today, does this resonate with you? Or did you just like, did your doctor drop out of the sky? Did you find them easily? Do you have the doctor of your dream dreams? I really would love to know. If you’re watching this on YouTube, leave me a comment below. And if you loved this information, if you love this content, if you want more insights that can lead to big, bold, beautiful steps on your IBD healing journey, don’t forget to sign up for our Gut Love Community newsletter at karen haley.com forward slash community. That’s karen haley.com K-A-R-Y-N H-A-L-E-Y.com forward slash W community Remember, we are stronger together. Keep stepping up, keep advocating, keep thriving and wishing you a cheeky and healthy Gut Healing Journey Chat soon. [00:24:04]:
If this podcast is meaningful for you, if it’s been helpful helpful in your IBD mom life, I’d love it if you would do a couple things. First, follow the pod. You’ll never miss an episode. And those moms who are searching for podcasts about Crohn’s and colitis, they’ll find us easier. There’s probably a plus sign or a follow sign where you’re listening in right now. It’s at the top of your screen. Go ahead and give that a tap and then also give the Tiki podcast a five star rating and review and share it with your friends who are also struggling with ibd. The more we are open about talking about our illness and bringing awareness around it, the more we’re able to connect and build a safe community around each other. [00:24:49]:
I love being in community with you and I appreciate you my friend. One last thing before we wrap up today. You know I think you’re a rocket for taking time out of your busy life to listen in and invest in your healing. It is capital H huge. And the reason I know how huge this is for you is because I am right there with you in all of this, working my wheel of wellness, keeping my Crohn’s at bay. It’s something that I invest in every day and I’d love it if we could continue our gut healing journey together. If you’re like me and you’re ready to soak up even even more amazing gut healing information, it’s time to join the Gut love community at karynhaley.com/community. The GLC is my free and fabulous space dedicated to dishing out even more IBD resources, recipes, healing hacks, lots of BTS secrets on how I manage my life with ibd all wrapped up in a weekly newsletter to help you keep your momentum going strong. [00:25:53]:
This IBD dish is gut healing insights that I only share within our tight knit community. Basically, it’s your one stop shop for a more diversified approach to true and lasting gut healing. Amen to that my friend. Let’s walk this gut healing journey together. Join me in the GLC at karynhaley.com community that’s K-A-R Y-N-H-A-L-E-Y.com forward slash community. I can’t wait to meet you.