It was never in your head.
Dr. Angela Andrews spent years being told she was fine when she wasn’t. Today she is a triple board-certified physician, the author of Listen to Her, and the owner of a direct primary care practice in Grand Rapids, Michigan, built around the time it takes to listen.
The Listen to Her Community is open. Come find your people.
Pain that doesn’t match what the tests show isn’t a sign that the pain is imaginary. It’s a sign that the tests haven’t caught up to the problem yet.
Angela Andrews, MD, Listen to Her, Chapter 1
Listen to Her
Stories of being dismissed, believed and finally heard
If you have ever felt dismissed by someone whose job was to help you, or wondered whether it really was all in your head, this book is for you.
Dr. Andrews begins with her own story. Less than three months after her son was born, she described the worst pain of her life to the doctors she saw and was told she was fine. Less than a week later she was in the hospital with severe sepsis. She knew better than almost anyone what that pain meant, and she still softened how she described it.
Six chapters follow, each one belonging to a patient of hers. Every story is real. Names are changed, and a few patients are woven together where their stories overlapped, but nothing is invented.
Inside the book
Part One: My story
- It’s Not All in Your Head
- When the Healer Becomes the Patient
- Finding the Answer, and Why I Left
Part Two: Their stories
- The Cost of Downplaying It
- Gathering Her Own Evidence
- Finding Her People Online
- The Mystery and the Second Opinion
- When Self-Advocacy Gets Messy
- Turning the Wait Into Fuel
Part Three: Where we go from here
- Not Malice, But Bias: Listen to Her
- A Note to the Clinician Reading This
- Where to Go From Here: A Reader’s Guide to the Three Paths
Three paths back to being believed
Every woman in the book was walking one of these paths. Most found one first and the others later. You don’t need all three at once. Start with whichever feels most possible today.
Become your own fiercest advocate
Write down exactly what you’re experiencing, in plain language. Bring the list to every appointment without apologizing for it, and ask for the specific test you think you need.
Find one person to fight beside you
It doesn’t have to be a clinician. A spouse or a friend willing to ask the follow-up question you’re too exhausted to ask can be enough, as long as they believe you and say so out loud.
Find your people
Look for others describing what you’re describing. When someone looks at what you’re living with and says “me too,” the validation is worth as much as any single piece of information. Join the community
If you’re a clinician
The book closes with a note to the clinician reading it, and a reader’s guide you can use alongside your patients. Ask a patient which of the three paths she already has, and which one she doesn’t. Simply asking the question out loud is a form of the listening this book is about.
A physician who has sat on both sides of the exam room
Dr. Angela Andrews is a triple board-certified physician in Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, and Lifestyle Medicine, and a wife, mother, and entrepreneur.
For years she practiced primary care inside a system built on fifteen-minute visits and a panel of more than three thousand patients. Over those same years she was a patient herself, fighting to be believed about her own body. Both experiences changed the way she practices medicine, and led her to write Listen to Her.
- Board certified
- Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, and Lifestyle Medicine
- Medical training
- Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. Combined Internal Medicine and Pediatrics residency at Detroit Medical Center and Wayne State University, completed in 2016. Later certified in Lifestyle Medicine.
- Before medicine
- Bachelor of Science and Engineering in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Michigan, then four years as an engineer at GE Healthcare.
- Before 2024
- Primary care physician with Trinity Health Medical Group in Byron Center
Through her podcast, The Lifestyle MD (opens in a new tab), and her writing and speaking, she offers practical, evidence-based guidance to help busy, purpose-driven adults reclaim their health without compromising what matters most to them: faith, family, and community.
She is also a former competitive bodybuilder and Figure Pro, named Overall Figure Winner at the 2020 OCB Chesapeake Classic. She lives in Grand Rapids with her husband and son.
The podcast
The Lifestyle MD
A podcast for people navigating midlife and beyond. Dr. Andrews shares honest conversations and practical, evidence-based strategies for taking care of your health through busy careers, caregiving, and parenting. You don’t have to sacrifice your well-being to thrive in life or in your career.
Direct Primary Care of West Michigan
Dr. Andrews owns Direct Primary Care of West Michigan in Grand Rapids, a practice built to give patients what a fifteen-minute visit never allowed: a real relationship and unhurried time.
The care is personalized and relationship-based, rooted in lifestyle medicine and chronic disease prevention. It starts with time to ask the follow-up question, and then actually wait for the answer.
The Listen to Her Community
Women are stronger together.
A place for women who have been told it was all in their head, and for anyone who has ever needed to hear someone say “me too.”