Mary Doherty 🏳️‍🌈

Updating CV for potential new role & realising the first time I ever said “I am autistic” to a group of medical professionals was April 2019. How many hundreds, if not thousands, since then? #NeurodiversityInMedicine 3 yrs from taboo to hot topic #AutismAcceptanceMonth

The cover of the Lancet. It says it all.

Published today in the international journal of nursing “Perhaps the most significant omission in the clinical and academic discourse on BPD is the failure to acknowledge that the diagnosis itself generates tremendous harm.” onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/in…

In this week’s Send for Help — my SEND agony aunt column in The Times — I argue we’re not seeing overdiagnosis, but decades of underdiagnosis finally catching up. thetimes.com/life-style/par…

@drkeithsiau 🤦‍♀️

A medical consultant looked me in the eye and told me I don't have ADHD, because it doesn't happen in adults and his wife, who is a psychiatrist, doesn't believe in it. Great!

@AutisticDoctor Compelling findings, illuminating! What’s the antidote to shame? Finding others who accept you, “shameful” parts and all, when you are ready to shine a light on who you really are 💡

Nora Keegan was not trying to change public health policy. She was just paying attention. In elementary school in Calgary, she noticed something adults kept dismissing. Children rushing out of public restrooms. Hands clamped over their ears. Faces tense. Complaints whispered between friends. It hurts my ears. She felt it too. After using hand dryers, her ears rang. The sound lingered. Adults brushed it off. They are just loud. That is what machines do. But Nora kept wondering why children reacted so strongly. And more importantly, why no one was measuring it. In fifth grade, she decided to find out. With the help of her parents, both physicians, she turned curiosity into research. She borrowed professional sound equipment. She designed an experiment. And then she went where the problem lived. Public bathrooms. Over two years, she visited forty four restrooms across Alberta. Libraries. Restaurants. Schools. She took eight hundred and eighty measurements. She measured at adult height. Then she crouched to measure at child height. She tested distance. Position. Airflow. Again and again. What she found was impossible to ignore. Many high speed hand dryers exceeded one hundred decibels at a child’s ear level. Some reached levels comparable to emergency sirens. Levels that medical authorities already prohibit in children’s toys because of the risk of hearing damage. Children were not imagining the pain. They were standing closer to the source. Their ears were smaller. And the sound hitting them was stronger than what adults experienced. Manufacturers claimed their machines were safe. Nora’s data showed real world conditions told a different story. And she did not stop there. Still in middle school, she began designing a noise reduction filter. A simple modification that lowered sound output by more than ten decibels. Proof that the problem was not inevitable. Then she did something most adults never do. She wrote a scientific paper. Her first submission was rejected. So she revised. She corrected. She tried again. In June 2019, Paediatrics and Child Health published her study. Its title was direct and impossible to dismiss. Children who say hand dryers hurt my ears are correct. She was thirteen years old. Health professionals paid attention. Researchers cited her work. Parents shared it. Manufacturers requested meetings. All because a child trusted her own experience enough to test it. Nora did not raise her voice. She measured. She documented. She proved. And in doing so, she reminded the world of something simple and easily forgotten. Sometimes the smallest voices are describing the biggest problems. You just have to listen.

@ItsEmilyKaty I love this! Is it ok to use in a presentation, with attribution of course?

Autistic inertia.

Autistic Psychiatrists: Silenced by Shame. An Inter... by Dr. Mary Doherty PsychiatryOnline Poster Library; May 17 2025; 4187845 posters.psychiatryonline.org/psych/2025/ann…

In communication with non-autistics, autistics "are constantly on high alert, overthinking how their words might be misinterpreted" & "try to read between the lines, which is tiring & can lead to speaking less or feeling less confident" sciencedirect.com/science/articl… mixed methods study

🗞️NEW PAPER🗞️ Proud of @Joyy_e_keenan! Autistic doctors transitioning into practice “I think medicine is really bad at times for insinuating that a certain sort of person is what they’re expecting to see” Read: tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10… @BSMSMedSchool #MedEd #Neurodiversity

@AllenFrancesMD I’m (probably naively) hoping for a better 2026 than 2025 was, but yeah, I hear you

An #Autistic Psychiatrist wins "Psychiatric Communicator of the Year" at @rcpsych 2025 Awards!! How cool is that 😎 We are delighted Khurram is part of our ADI leadership team. His book "Explaining AuDHD" is an essential read for anyone interested autism & ADHD @APApsychiatric

Please apply for this fully funded PhD Scholarship in Autism & Addiction Research at the Autism Research Centre ⁦@ARC_Cambridge⁩ in Cambridge University. A chance to join a friendly research culture & make a real difference to autistic people’s lives cam.ac.uk/jobs/phd-stude…

@RedIsND cambridge.org/core/journals/…

@AutisticDoctor Do you have a link to your research? I don't think I've yet been able to read it and would be super interested.

Maybe some of those who don't "see" autism or ADHD might consider looking in a mirror? Autistic psychiatrists miss autism diagnoses when they themselves are their own benchmark for "normal" according to my research. Positionality matters. tes.com/magazine/teach…

@MsRobinHosking Oh they definitely do, I know at least a few, undoubtedly not autistic

@AutisticDoctor I’m not convinced allistic psychiatrists/psychologists/therapists/CPNs exist

when my account started going viral, people were like "this guy is autistic" and i thought "i'm not autistic, i just have a hobby." then one day i googled "signs of autism in adults" and went "hmmm..."

Delighted to be in New York with the munchkin, to take part in a think tank on autism & ageing at the United Nations today. Watch the livestream here autism.org/aging-and-auti…

Robert Roberson is an innocent autistic man who has been wrongfully imprisoned for 20 years in Texas & is due to be executed on October 16 2025. I joined this Panel to raise awareness of this imminent tragedy to call for his life to be saved. Please share youtube.com/watch?v=5buptL…