SMNTY Interviews: Dr. Sharon Malone

Author, podcaster and advocate Dr. Sharon Malone chats with us about what she's learned from her decades of experience in the medical field when it comes to women's health, her new podcast The Second Opinion, and disparities and accessibility in healthcare.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to Stuff
I Never Told You, production of iHeartRadio, and today we
are so excited to welcome health expert, reproductive rights advocate,
author of best selling book Grown Women Talk, and the

(00:27):
host of the podcast The Second Opinion, doctor Sharon Malone. Hello,
Thank you so much for being here.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Well, thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
We're so excited to talk to you. We have so
many questions. Can you introduce yourself to our audience please?

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yes. I am doctor Sharon Malone. I'm a Board certified obgyn.
I am also a certified menopause practitioner. I'm the chief
medical Advisor at Alloy Women's Health after a thirty year
career in private practice, and you recently a podcaster. You know,

(01:04):
I've done a lot of things since I left my
practice five years ago, and I don't think anyone can
accuse me of being in retirement. I hate that word,
by the way, I hate retirement. I've just pivoted new careers.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
I love that you have done so much and this
is a This is kind of an interesting pivot into
the podcasting world with the new show. Can you tell
us about the podcast and how you got into podcasting.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yeah, you know, it's a really unexpected turn, to be
honest with you. You know, I was one of those
people who during the great COVID time, I got three
months off from work because you know, I was considered
it's really harsh to be considered non essential. But you know,
I guess pap smears and talking about menopause weren't emergency care.

(01:53):
So I had those three months off and I had
a little bit of time, a lot of time actually,
to re I'm like, you know, is this really what
I want to continue doing. I loved what I did,
and I you know, and I have no complaints about that,
but it just seemed like the right time to exit
stage left. And after those three months off, decided to

(02:16):
leave my private practice with no plans in mind. And
then funny things happen when you have a little time
on your hands. And my dear friend Michelle Obama had
just launched her first podcast, the Michelle Obama Podcast, five
years ago, and she said, you know what, why don't
we talk about menopause? Because we've had countless conversations around

(02:40):
the table, you know this and talking to my friends
and giving my obgin menopause advice, and she said, you
know what, I want to talk about it. So she
was really one of the first people that openly, I
say first famous people who sort of claimed it and said, hey,
no shame in this game. I'm menopausal and this is

(03:02):
what I do. So that we had that conversation five
over five years ago, and once I did that podcast,
it sort of opened up a world because you know,
I'm known here in Washington, but just to my patients,
and that sort of opened up a new world. That's
how the founders at Alloy, which was just a really

(03:23):
a startup startup at that point, found me because they
heard me on the Michelle Obama podcast. So fast forward,
Michelle and I did a couple of podcasts and she said,
you know, and I will give her all the credit
in the world because this was her initiative to say,
I really want to talk about you know, women's health
and to have a space for that. Would you do it?

(03:45):
And so this has been a long time coming. We
really started talking about it five years ago and it
just came to Fruition this week and we decided to
do the second opinion. Her show is in my opinion,
So my show is the opinion makes total sense. It does.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
I mean listening to that podcast specifically was phenomenal. Like
there's so many conversations that aren't had enough. You are
really just on the beat when we need more information,
like with all this disinformation, misinformation and just complete erasure,
especially when it comes to women's healthcare. Yes, this is

(04:24):
such an important topic that's not being talked about enough,
and so you coming with this podcast is phenomenal. But
I also love the fact that you're talking about menopause
because as a person who is entering into possibly perimenopause,
which I'm still trying to figure out and not even understanding,
this is something that needs to be talked about even

(04:47):
more in a time where people don't want to understand.
I guess what what do you think when we talk
about like perimenopause and menopause and as it's coming into
more in conversation, Well, you know, I think.

Speaker 2 (04:59):
That as well women generally, we have been taught to
be ashamed of so many things that our bodies do.
You know, from our periods to nursing. Everything is shameful
and it's been over sexualized or desexualized. I should say
about our bodily functions, and you know it's time to say, yeah,

(05:21):
we're going to talk about this. Why would you walk
into perimenopause and menopause with as little information as women do.
I mean, you know, a generation ago women walked into
puberty that way. You know, they didn't have any information
about their periods, and then all of a sudden, all
these changes started happening in your body, and then you
start bleeding on top of that, and it was horrifying. Well,

(05:44):
the same thing happens entering, you know, perimenopause, and we
don't prepare women for it. And so when all of
these things start happening and they're you know, the list
of perimenopausal and menopausal symptoms is growing every day. I
think we're up to like thirty four plus symptoms. But
when they happen and in no particular order, you're shocked

(06:07):
by them, or you think that there's something wrong, And unfortunately,
because you don't realize that it's all part of a
constellation of symptoms, it is a transition. Women sort of
parcel out their symptoms to different doctors. Oh I'm depressed
or anxious, Maybe I should be on an antidepressant. Oh
i'm gaining weight, maybe I should see an endocrinologist, and

(06:29):
you see how we treat the individual symptoms without realizing
that it's all part of a bigger picture. And you know,
the unfortunate thing is not only women who are caught unawares,
but there is a generation of doctors who have not
been trained and know how to adequately treat and counsel
women in perimenopause and menopause as well. And that's the

(06:51):
unfortunate part. When you need the help the most and
the most trusted source would be your doctor, and your
doctor doesn't know what to do, then you're just really
left out there on your well.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
Yes, and we're going to talk about that more in
a bit because Samantha and I both have recently had
some health issues and we want to be the show
very open about it on the show, so we'll talk
about that in a second. But I did want to
One of the reasons we knew this would be a
really good fit to have this conversation with you is

(07:23):
one thing we do discuss on the show is how
often women aren't believed when it comes to the medical field,
or in some cases present different symptoms than men do.
And that's what's been kind of long studied or haven't
been studied at all, and when it comes to certain
condition and how that gets worse when you add other

(07:47):
intersections like race or sexual orientation and you dig into
a lot of these issues around these disparities. On your
podcast with interviews from topics around birth to depression, you
dismiss the symptoms, right, Can you break down some of
this for us as someone who has been working in

(08:07):
this field for decades.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
Well, you know, the one thing that I want your
listeners to understand is this is that the medical profession
generally has been dismissive of women, you know, and it
wasn't until even eighteen fifties that it was even deemed
that the study of women's reproductive issues was even a
thing that was worthy of studying. And unfortunately, it had

(08:32):
very fraud roots. And that was with Jay Mary and Simms,
who experimented a lot on enslaved women. And unfortunately, you know,
he gets touted as being this father of gynecology and
the inventor of the field, but there was no knowledge
and no really acknowledgment of the women that he experimented

(08:53):
on on Narka, Betsy and Lucy who are the only
names that we know that helped him create the field.
And this man went on to become the president of
the American Medical Association. He was the founder of the
first women's hospital in New York City. So you know,
that's how we started, you know, so you can imagine
there's a lot of bias. There's a lot of not

(09:17):
really understanding the importance and the really and acknowledging the
autonomy of women. You know, women were to be dealt with,
and then if you complained, you were hysterical or you
were it was all in your head and you were
just behaving badly. You know, women, if you would just

(09:38):
stop all this whining, perhaps you'd feel better. And this
is and that goes from Freud to you know, the
medical profession, i'd say writ large even to today. So
that's a lot of infrastructure that's been built in that
all of us as physicians have been trained in this
same tradition of thinking that women make things, or that

(10:01):
all of our health problems are really psychological problems, they're
not really physical problems, and not looking at the whole
woman rather than just our separate parts.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
Absolutely, yes, and it's very disheartening in some ways that
we're still having these conversations, and it's also I'm glad
that we are. And yeah, one of the things you
talk about in your intros is being your own best advocate, right,

(10:36):
And I did recently have a pretty scary medical experience
where I wished I'd had someone as an advocate, even
if it was me, because it so quickly I turned
it into oh, I'm exaggerating. I was doing the gaslighting myself,
which I know you talked about in the shows as well,
and Samantha and I have been we've talked about that
where we're so ready to not be believed that it

(10:59):
has to be like I'm about to die before I
go seek help. Why do you think it's important for
women to have this information, understand this information, and the
value of having a friend or an advocate.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
Well, you know I write about this in my book
and Grown a Woman Talk, because you know, my book
is not just about menopause. It is really about how
to navigate and advocate for yourself in a medical system
that oftentimes doesn't see you, doesn't hear you. And so
if you understood a little bit more about how the
system worked and why it is that way, then it

(11:38):
helps you better advocate for yourselves. And I think the
biggest myth that we have, and you know I get it,
but you know, there's this notion that the doctor knows everything.
If I feel a certain way and the doctor tells
me it's nothing, then it must be nothing because the
doctor knows more than I do. That's sort of the
nature of the doctor patient relationship. And it's only you know,

(12:00):
it's only really exaggerated when it comes to women, but
it's that way generally. You know, the doctor knows best,
not really, so we sort of take a backseat. And
I want you know, I wrote the book with the
intent that you understand enough. Nobody's trying to send you
to medical school. That's not the point. I don't want

(12:20):
you to argue, you know, differential diagnoses with your doctor,
but I want you to be able to clearly, clearly
articulate what your issues are and to not leave that
interaction without having a concrete plan or a follow up
about what we're going to do about it. Because for
someone to say, oh, you're fine, no, no, no, if

(12:44):
you know that you're not, remember no one is a
better expert of you than you. So if you get
an answer that seems satisfactory to you, and you can
follow up with that, that's fine, But don't ever be
dismissed and then leave and continue to have that part
problem and not get it addressed, because that's how, really

(13:04):
how we get into trouble. And I think that that's
how women really disengage sometimes from the medical community, and
then you go to quackery, you know, because you still
you still are having whatever the issue is. And if
you don't get an answer there, then trust me, there's
going to be somewhere, somewhere out there in the world
who's going to give you, you know, a crystal amulet

(13:28):
or you know, a magic herb or something, and you
so want that relief. And that's the point that I
want to make is that the best your best option
really is a medical professional know when to leave. You know,
if someone is not serving you, then you say, all right,
well that was unsatisfactory. You know, I used the analogy

(13:51):
all the time. I said, you know, if you went
to a restaurant and you got bad service, would you
continue to eat there? You know, move on? There will
be someone else, or you know, at the very least
give them the the expectation in this interaction that you're
an adult. You know that you are capable of making decisions.

(14:13):
And let me say this to you that the reason
why I say that the whole concept of a second
opinion even exists is because a lot of medicine is interpretation.
We may be arguing from the same set of facts
or data, but how that is interpreted may vary from
one person to another. And so to imply that everything

(14:37):
or every answer, you know, every problem has one answer,
is not true. So you know, if you you know,
and I said, I'm very liberal about the fact about
second opinions, and when I was practicing, I would tell
my patients, you know, I would tell them, I say, look,
I'm very clear about what I know and what I
think you know. And I do get to have that

(14:59):
a pain, and it might be, yes, a little bit
more informed than your opinion, but I'll at least tell
you why, and then you get to decide which of
those opinions makes most sense for you. And that is
really the crux of how this relationship has to be
moving forward and not just someone telling you what to do.

(15:21):
You know, we're adults, we're grown women. I don't need
to be lectured to and I don't need to be dismissed,
but I do need to be involved in the most
important thing of all, which is my health.

Speaker 1 (15:32):
Oh I wish i'd found you earlier, Saul could have
helped me.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
It's never too late. It's never too late.

Speaker 4 (15:39):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
Yes. Something that is so great about what you're doing now.
What you focus on is accessibility, making healthcare more accessible,
because it is a lot of it is very complicated

(16:03):
and very intimidating, and so when you're trying to understand
it as someone outside the medical field, it can just
be so complicated and a lot of the stuff you
talk about on the podcast, it's very complicated, but you
explain it in a way that is understandable, not condescending

(16:24):
at all, very like, Okay, I get this now I
have the facts, and maybe I can understand more about
what's going on with me or what have you. How
did you come by that skill and what are the
challenges of it?

Speaker 2 (16:39):
Well, you know, I'm first off, I was a regular
person for a lot longer than I was a doctor,
and I have been on the other side of that desk,
you know, with family members and with friends. So the
one thing that really struck me was that if you
listen to two doctors who talk to each other, we

(17:02):
really do have a different language, you know, and I
understand what someone's saying, but the person who's sitting there
next to me, that I may be there with a
family member or a friend, I know that they don't
understand that. And I think for a lot of doctors,
they forget that that you're talking to regular people and

(17:22):
that we're using terms and we're saying things and throwing
out numbers and facts and figures that don't make sense.
And so there's a way to have that conversation, but
to have it in regular person speak. And so I've
always just sort of approached how I speak to patients,
how I would speak to another adult who perhaps does

(17:45):
not We don't speak the same language, but I think
I can be an interpreter. I can take doctor speak
and translate it into regular person speak, and it doesn't
mean that that is condescending. You're not speaking, You're just
making sure that people understand what you're saying. And you know,

(18:05):
for those of you who don't know me, I have
a musical reference for everything throughout my book I have,
you know, I have a playlist. I have music in there,
and there's a line from the great Erica Badou and
she says, what good do your words do if they
don't understand you? And that's sort of the approach that
I take when I'm talking to patients. You know, I've

(18:26):
always been of the mind that women are capable women
people are capable of making good decisions for themselves if
they are presented with facts that they can understand or
options that they can understand. But a lot of people,
I think, go in and particularly of my generation, and

(18:48):
before they expect that the doctor's just supposed to tell
you what to do. And now it's a partnership and
you and your doctors should be in this together and
our goals are the same, and it's to you resolve
whatever issues you may have. And you know, and I
think for me as a doctor, there should be an
element of humility. I know what I know, and I

(19:11):
know what I don't know, and when I don't know it,
then I'm going to make sure that I get you
to someone that does know it. But I would never
say because I can't figure it out, that it's unfigure outable.
You know, I may not know the answer, so let's
go figure out where we can get you to someone
that could get you a better resolution than I could.

Speaker 3 (19:32):
There's so much in that conversation. I'm like you being
willing to say I don't know. I feel like that
doesn't happen enough in any profession. If someone thinks that
they're a professional, they truly believe then they are the
end all, and not enough people are willing to say
this is wrong. And I think we see that as
a whole when it comes to any kind of system.
But in the medical field, especially right now, especially as

(19:54):
we're trying to navigate insurances that have monopolies, as well
as the decreasing in meta care and Medicare, or like
what's being covered and what's not. Overall, there's so many things,
especially in the US, I guess we need to keep
that regional in this speak and in this timeframe of
healthcape that we are in that right now, everything seems

(20:16):
like it's getting worse for the normal person, a person
who's covered by the insurance system, whether it be the
affordable healthcare or whether it is Medicare or Medicare. What
do you see are some of the biggest failures that
are happening and what do you think maybe some of
the fixes or are there fixes, Like I don't know

(20:37):
when we're talking about with COVID times we have now telehealth,
but that's slowly slipping backwards, but things like that, what
could be some of those fixes.

Speaker 2 (20:46):
Well, I tell you we're at this very serious inflection
point now just in healthcare, healthcare delivery. Healthcare costs a
lot of things, and there's a lot that contributes to that,
and that is one. We are facing a current and
increasingly worse worsening doctor shortage. Okay, because we have you know,

(21:13):
we have now we're in just in my field alone
in obg I in we're going to be in relatively
short about five thousand obgy in short. But even that
five thousand doctor shortage is not evenly distributed. There are
over fifty percent of the counties in the United States
that do not have a practicing OBGYN. We have a

(21:33):
shortage of primary care doctors. The aging population, the over
sixty five group is growing, is the fastest growing demographic,
and we don't have geriatricians. We don't have doctors you know,
solely devoted to aging patients. And so the kind of
care that you're going to get is spotty. You know,

(21:54):
you where you live is going to determine whether or
not you have access to quality healthcare. And even if
you're in a place like New York City or Washington,
d C. The shortages are here because it's affected by
whether or not you have insurance. There's so many doctors
that are so frustrated with the system and the insurance

(22:15):
market that they are coming out of the insurance marketplace.
So you get a really good doctor in there, you know,
and they're frustrated and they're saying, you know what, I'm
not doing this anymore. I'm going to I'm going to
be a concierge doctor, or I'm going to be fee
for service. So that bottleneck that already exists because of

(22:36):
just the changing demographics, it gets tighter and tighter. Women
who are increasingly, you know, a larger percentage of the
doctor workforce are leaving in droves. Young women who are
in their forties. I at least was sixty two when
I left. But women who are in their mid forties
are saying, you know what, I'm out of here, I'm done.

(22:57):
I'm finding another I'm finding an exit ramp, and I'm
going to do something that's maybe medical related but not
direct patient care. And that's creating you know, it's creating
a chasm between the need and being able to meet
that need. So what are we going to do about it? Well,
we can't clone doctors, okay, But I think what we

(23:18):
can do is realize that this is the time where
we have the technology and we have the wherewithal that
we're going to have to alter how we deliver care,
just like we changed you know, fifty sixty years ago,
where a doctor used to make a house call. Guess what,
we don't do that anymore, you know, and patients got

(23:38):
used to it. Well, now we are. We're sort of
understanding that there are a lot of things that need
that can be done in a digital health space. You know,
not everything requires an in person visit. Yes, there are
things that do, but the things that don't we're going
to have to offload that. We're going to have to

(23:58):
harness technology. We're going to have to use artificial intelligence
intelligently such that we can meet the needs of our patients.
And it's going to involve sort of broadening the population
of healthcare providers. It will be nurse practitioners, it'll be
physicians assistants, because the point is that you get what

(24:19):
you need. And doctors do a lot of things, and
particularly obgi ns. You know, on any given day, we're
a social worker, we're you know, a psychologist, we're a
marriage counselor oh yeah, and we deliver babies and do
surgery and we're supposed to talk to you about menopause,
which is which is a thing in and of itself,
and to be honest with you, it's just too much.

(24:40):
And so we're going to have to figure out, you know,
how do we reorganize, you know, how do we get
more efficient? You know, that's why, you know, when I
left my practice, I wasn't done being a doctor. I
was just done working in that particular space. And so
when I had the opportunity at Alloy to be in

(25:03):
on the ground floor and to say, all right, if
we're going to do menopause, how would we reimagine getting
that care too, and the accessibility to women who need it,
and to do that affordably. Those were the two missions
at hand. And I think that we've done that, and

(25:24):
that's it's just the you know, this is just the
tip of the iceberg. But there's a lot of stuff
that we're going to see in the next few years
that you know is really going to involve technology. And
for your generation, who's really you know, you're already digitally
savvy and you know how to do this. It won't
be odd to you, just like it was not odd
to me. Why would I expect the doctor to come

(25:46):
to my house? That would be ridiculous. You know, it'll
be the same thing. Why do I have to take
a day off from work and go pay money and
sit and pay for parking and wait for an hour
for a doctor to tell me you're fine? Maybe I am,
maybe I'm not, But I did I need to do
all that for that?

Speaker 4 (26:01):
Yeah, you know, oh pay for parking. That annoys me,
not to know. I don't know why, but that was
just like a ma cherry on top.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
If I heard one more time a patient asked me,
do you validate parking? No, we don't. We don't validate
park I.

Speaker 3 (26:15):
Will say for our healthcare person that are like they
told us at the beginning, did you park here?

Speaker 4 (26:19):
All right? We can validate like they just didn't. Just
we're already we didn't.

Speaker 2 (26:22):
Oh, if we validated parking, we would like we'd go
into negative dollars for the visit.

Speaker 3 (26:27):
You know, it's like, oh, there's so many things I
have to ask Let me ask you what your thoughts
are on medical tourism.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
Oh, you know what, it's it's scary to me.

Speaker 4 (26:39):
Like the way you begin that if it was like, oh, yeah, no, because.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
I mean, I don't you know, let me say this.
Let me tell you this is falls in the category
of what I think now, what I know right right, right,
all right, So I would be very wary of going
to another country. Maybe it's fine, maybe it's not. But again,
it tells you the that people will go to to

(27:03):
get care for something because it's so out of hand here,
you know. And I hate to be the bearer of
bad news, you know, but once the price of something
goes up, it very rarely goes down, you know. You can.
All you can do and hope for in medicine is
that we that we put pump the brakes on some

(27:23):
of it, you know. And maybe but I'm gonna I'm
gonna go back step farther and I'm gonna I'm gonna
say something that doctors would probably like not to hear
me say. But it's true. Doctors have to make a living, right,
I get it right, you know. And unfortunately, this is
the the vice gript that doctors are in. You go

(27:48):
to school, you've got a mountain of debt when you
get out. I mean basically, you get out of med
school and you've already bought your first house, and it's
called here's my medical debt, my tuition debt from from
mets school and college. And you're in this this this
constant push and pull with insurance companies. Insurance companies will

(28:10):
tell you I don't care what you charge. This is
what I'm going to pay, so you know it maybe
fifty percent it maybe thirty percent of what your charge is.
So there's this this, this this real economic pressure that
doctors have. You know, we they're high and let me
say highly trained professionals. You know, they deserve their time

(28:33):
is worth something. But you have someone else who is
telling you what your time is worth, you know, and
so many of the medical practice is now. As a
you know, as a physician, I was not just a physician.
I was a I was a business. I was a
small business owner. Our practice was independent. We ran a practice.
We could make decisions about what days I was going

(28:55):
to work, what days I didn't want to work, how off,
you know, And it was all sort of based on
what my particular needs were at that time. And now
that so many medical practices have been bought by private
equity groups or they've been subsumed by large universities and
hospital groups, doctors are no longer in control of their time.

(29:15):
They're not. So you're being told, now, okay, you're going
to see this is how many patients you're going to
see a day, this is how this is what your
productivity plan is about how you get paid. I mean,
that's very disheartening for people who have been medical professionals,
thinking that you're going to have some autonomy and you do.

(29:36):
Most doctors now that you will see and you can
check this out, most of them are employees, you know,
or somehow or the other. They're not in control of that.
So there's a real economic pressure and people will do
sort of a lot of machinations to around the system
because the payment the repayment schedule is so complicated that

(29:59):
there is a tendency to say, okay, well, you're only
going to pay me fifty percent for this and twenty
percent for that, so I'll just put as many things
in there as I can to charge for in the
hopes that in aggregate it'll end up being just a
fair price for my time and my work. And those
are the games that we play with insurance companies. That's

(30:21):
the game that we play with Medicare and medicaid. But
at the end of the day, no one has yet
said this makes no sense. You know, why don't we
decide what's fair, what's accurate, how to do it so
people don't have to play these games. But who I'll
tell you who gets hurt by that? Okay, you have
your insurance, so you go in, you pay, you get

(30:43):
your copay, or you have your surgery or whatever. The
insurance company, let's just say they pay me fifty cents
on a dollar. You, Samantha, come in with the same issue,
you have the same procedures done, but you don't have insurance,
or you have insurance has a really high deductible. Guess what,

(31:04):
you have to pay one hundred percent. You don't get
a discount because I say, well, you know what, this
insurance company is only going to pay me fifty percent,
So you pay fifty percent. No, you pay one hundred percent,
so you see what I mean. So you've got this
this patchwork system where the people who get hurt the
most are the people who can afford it the least,

(31:27):
because these are people who can't afford insurance or for
whatever reason, you know, are caught in that gap. Maybe
you're between jobs, and you know, so it's not an
accident that the number one reason for bankruptcy in this
country is medical debt because the people that can't pay,
you know, what are you going to do? You can't say, well,

(31:50):
that's all right, I'll just die. No, that's not a
that's not an acceptable answer to that. So you know,
our system's broken. That's the bottom line. It's broken. It's
unnecessarily complicated. And you know, the best example that I
can give you, and you may be too young to
remember this, but I'll tell you because I remember the

(32:12):
old in the old days, what's about to happen to
doctors is what has happened to pharmacies and pharmacists. Okay,
there was a time in the not too distant past
when pharmacies were independently owned. You know, you had you
into your corner pharmacy. The pharmacist there was usually the

(32:35):
owner of the pharmacy. They are trained professionals. They were
back there. They weren't just you know, taking a pill
out of one big bottle and putting in a little bottle.
They were doing things they knew. They would counsel patients,
they would actually compound things back there. So it was
a very different pharmacist that you were looking at now

(32:57):
and very well respected in the community. Well what do
you think of now when you think of a pharmacist.
Do you think of they're just back there? You know,
they're they're working at nay any pharmacies, CVS, Walgreens or whatever.
They're a technical in your eyes, they're a technician. All
they're doing you know, what are you doing? It's like,
how hard could that be? Here and there? And so

(33:21):
we have sort of devalued the profession, even though those
people are just as highly trained as the pharmacists, probably
more so because they have more things to think about
from fifty years ago. But you don't think of that
pharmacist at CVS as someone being you know, yeah, this
person's going to give me some advice and go make

(33:44):
me something if I can't take it. I used to
love the pharmacists here because my children, you know, children
don't like to take yucky medicine. And he would actually
compound their antibiotics, so it would be bubblegum flavor, or
it will be this whatever. He would make it and
loved it. Okay, No, they don't do that anymore, And

(34:06):
so medicine is becoming where doctors, I think doctors time
is devalued. And I don't think doctors. No one went
into medicine because they wanted to do a bad job
or be dismissive. But if you were under that pressure,
Oh my goodness, I've got a patient every fifteen minutes,
then you annie needing more time that may or may

(34:28):
not happen. Or it's just say come back another day,
you know, and now another parking, another half day off
from work, just to get your questions answered. There's a
better way, and we just got to you know, we
have the tools. We've just got to figure out how
to put it all together.

Speaker 1 (34:44):
Yes, I recently had an experience where I was, I'm
trying to find a doctor, and I was. I went
to a place near me. There was a sign on
the window and it was quite long and it was
about how how they do insurance M M. And I
just remember thinking, yes, there's got to be a better

(35:06):
way than this, because clearly the doctor's frustrated. I can't
understand any of this.

Speaker 2 (35:13):
So to this day, to this day, I do not understand.
There's so much about insurance that I don't understand. I'm like, wall,
what you know you get when you go to a doctor,
and you get when you fire your insurance and you
get what's called a EOB which is an explanation of benefits,
and I call it it's confusion of benefits. I'm like,

(35:34):
I don't know, so wait, wait a minute, that didn't
get paid for what? And it is? It is a
system that is not designed to confuse you. It is
designed to not pay the doctors in a timely fashion,
but also to get you. The more you deny a patient,
then you've got to decide is it worth it for

(35:55):
me to be on the phone for half a day
trying to get the answer to this, And increasingly for
a lot of people, you're like, you know what, it's
not worth it. You know, if it's below a certain amount,
you're like, whatever, and so who wins? Who wins? I'm
not gonna I'll leave it at that.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
Well, going back to the technology aspect, because it is
true that a lot of us have these expensive We
know how expensive going to the doctor will be, and
so where do we go. First We go online and
we're trying to figure out how serious is this. And
one of the interesting things of working on this show

(36:46):
is like, for instance, with heart attacks, we know that
symptoms for heart attacks look different with women, and so
I know that going in, but if I can't find
the great information about how different they look, then it's
almost just as confusing, if that makes sense, because I
now I don't know anything at all, and so I'm

(37:09):
just curious because it's interesting that we've reached this point
where we know there's a difference, but maybe not quite
what the difference is. And then on the other side
of that, when I recently went to the hospital, they
they told me like, oh, you're too young for this,
and you're distressed. And that's something you talk about in

(37:29):
your podcast is the kind of the expectation the doctor
might have of this, is what a patient of this
looks like. So can you talk about all of that?

Speaker 2 (37:40):
As doctors? This is sort of how we're trained. There's
so much to know and honestly learning an individual requires
that I have some you know, I have some experience
with you. You know, I've seen you once. In my practice,
I had seen patients, you know, I've taken care of
them since high school through menopause. You know, I know

(38:02):
your mother, I know your children, I know your family.
So I have context, you know, I don't just have
just a random string of facts about what this looks
like and what that looks like. I know that you
annie complain all the time, Samantha, you never do so
how to interpret what comes in from that? But so
much of how we make decisions and make diagnoses is

(38:25):
really heavily dependent just upon pattern recognition. You know, I
have to know that who's at risk for this? You
know who's at risk for that? What are the symptoms?
How do they all hang together? But it's a pattern,
and I have and we have been taught to have
a picture in our mind of who presents with what.

(38:47):
And that's just built in bias, because that means that
just because you don't look like the textbook picture for
that thing, that you don't have it. And that's what
we lack is really the context and the ability to
sort of go beyond this superficial and that's where a
lot of racial bias really gets built into the system.
That's where a lot of the gender bias gets built

(39:08):
into the system because you're thinking, well, for time immemorial,
all we had to base these symptoms on really were men,
you know, and women weren't even included in clinical trials
until nineteen ninety three, which was you know, I mean
nineteen ninety three. My first daughter was born in nineteen
ninety three, so I'm like, that wasn't that long ago.

(39:31):
But women weren't included. So a lot of the things
about how symptoms present in women, we're just really sort
of understanding that because we never really looked at it
or paid into attention. And I didn't coin this phrase,
but you know, it's out. I forget who did. But
this notion that women are not small men, you know,

(39:52):
and how we present is very different. We can have
the same condition like heart attacks, and when we talk
about and this is how biased the conversation is when
we talk about heart attacks and women in heart attacks
and men, the language is, well, women have atypical symptoms
as we present for heart attacks, and it's like, well,

(40:14):
really are they atypical? Are they atypical? For men, you know,
because you're using that sort of pattern recognition pattern and
putting it on and overlaying it on women, and it's
not the same. So we are now just becoming aware
of the fact that women present differently that different points
of our reproductive lives. I mean, that's why we've had

(40:36):
so much of an issue with menopause and not understanding
that menopause in and of itself is not just a
reproductive issue. It's not just the end of your periods yay.
It is a total body experience that has effects from
your hair to your toes and everything in between. And

(40:59):
we haven't really taken into account how menopause and the
change in your hormones affects your body composition, your bones,
your brain, your heart, you know, whether or not you're
diagnosed with diabetes. All of this stuff is hormone dependent
and it's different for women than it is for men.
And then we also, you know, have when you're at

(41:22):
the intersection of gender and race. Then it's even more
ridiculous because we have a picture in our mind of
who we think has endometriosis. You know, it's a thin
white woman. We have a picture in our mind of
you know who has depression and anxiety. We have, you know,

(41:43):
so all of these little shorthand notes that we use
will will leave out a lot of people. And that's
what we're really trying to address is to realize that,
you know, look at the person, not the stereotype, and
listen to what they're saying. And a lot of time times.
You know, again that requires time. But we have an

(42:04):
opportunity and I think a huge opportunity here because if
we're to address this and how we build these large
language models for AI, we can either build that same
bias into the AI or we can take it out
of that. You know, we can make we can make

(42:25):
the intake race neutral. You know, I don't have to
look at Samantha and say, oh, well, here's an Asian person,
and here's a black person, and here's this person. So
these things, because again it really sort of gets us
on a path that sometimes is hard to get out of.
So I think that you know, again, with technology, it's
a huge opportunity if we build them correctly, because you know,

(42:49):
as we say, garbage in, garbage out, So if you
put the same you know, you put the same thing
in that what we've been using and what we've been taught,
you're going to come up with the same uh out,
which is unfortunate, but we have it's a huge, huge opportunity.
So you know, I think that the more informed any

(43:10):
person is coming into a doctor's office, the better that
interaction is going to be. And you can be informed
without being aggressive or confrontational. Ask good questions, you know,
make the doctor think about it well, like, oh, well,
maybe you didn't know that my mother had whatever, or
my family history. I may not look like a person

(43:32):
who has osteoporosis, but my mother broke her hip and
she's in a nursing home. Those are the kinds of
contextual things that sometimes doctors don't have the time to
ferret out. But if you put them in a system
that takes all that into account, then I think you're
going to get a better outcome.

Speaker 3 (43:52):
Right, another big caveat if if they train appropriately.

Speaker 2 (43:57):
Yeah, but you know what, and this is where I
think it's important doctors get involved. You know, don't let
other people who are developing this who are really all right,
you know, yeah, you're out there to make money. Doctors
are really weird technophobes. Let me say, you know, how
long how doctors are still complaining about electronic medical records.

(44:18):
But that's a classic example of what happens when you
develop a system that doesn't really take into account how
doctors actually practice this?

Speaker 3 (44:29):
Right.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
It's onerous. It's worse now than I think it was
when you had a paper chart, just simply because you know,
of all the things that you took into account, you
didn't take into account, Well, how does this fit into
a doctor's workday? How about you know you may have
a very thorough chart that you've asked everything, but you

(44:50):
have to ask yourself, is a doctor every time that
patient walks into your office and it's a different doctor
seeing you, are they going to read the fifty seven
pages that were generated from your her last visit? Probably not,
you know. So that's why I said opportunity, and I
urged all my physician friends who said, I said, don't
let these things get developed without you, right, without taking

(45:13):
into account the things that we need to fix.

Speaker 3 (45:16):
Right, And that's why it's important to have a diverse group. Yes,
it is when it comes to being in these.

Speaker 2 (45:22):
Faces exactly exactly.

Speaker 3 (45:25):
And then you know, you brought up heart attacks And
I've told the story before, so I'm adopted.

Speaker 4 (45:28):
My mother is white.

Speaker 3 (45:30):
But at the age late forties, early fifties, she started
having weird symptoms. I was putting quotes weird in that
like no one could figure it out. She went through
four to five doctors.

Speaker 4 (45:41):
She had like jaw.

Speaker 3 (45:42):
Pain, all these other things, and it wasn't your typical thing.
She was not necessarily overweight. And when she finally went
to a final doctor, they were like, oh, my god,
let's do a scan all these things, and they realized
like ninety four percent of her widow maker of her
heart was clogged as she was on the press, so
having a massive heart attack, and it took months months

(46:05):
for them to even figure this out. Again, this is
like two thousand and five to two thousand and seven,
so not that long ago.

Speaker 4 (46:12):
When I say twenty years ago, it sounds like a
long time ago.

Speaker 3 (46:14):
But when you put it in context of like in
the Twin like it was still the two thousands that
they did not understand the modern doctors. So we're from Atlanta.
She was going through all the specialists in Atlanta did
not understand until like months months later that she was
about to die.

Speaker 4 (46:30):
Like they were like, oh.

Speaker 3 (46:32):
Because she was a woman with quote unquote atypical symptoms.
And we know we finally that people are finally starting
to talk about that, Like we see campaigns coming out
in conversations about like all these different things. And we
know a part of that is due to the grants
and the divers of programs that have been out there
because of DEI.

Speaker 4 (46:53):
And all these other things.

Speaker 3 (46:55):
Now we're watching all these programs slowly come back, even
striking out any programs that have the word women, God
forbid or of that. Should we be concerned about these
rollbacks when it comes to finally being able to say,
let's study women, let's study people with uteruses.

Speaker 2 (47:12):
Oh, I could not agree more. I mean, we were
at this we're finally at this inflection point where we
were going to say, wow, we haven't had a study
of a large scale study on women and particularly postmenopausal
women since the Women's Health Initiative. And that was almost
thirty years ago that that study was initiated, you know,

(47:34):
and it was stopped twenty three years ago. Large scale
learned a lot from that, misinterpreted a few things, So
there's that. But it was really the first time that
anyone said, Okay, let's look at women let's look how
women and even a lot of the heart data, the
cardiac data. The reason why it's so difficult. All right,
So nineteen ninety three, you've got to include women in

(47:57):
clinical trials. Okay, But before that, the face of a
heart attack was you know, an overweight black person with hypertension,
or it was a type a white man you know,
who was in his fifties and sixties. You know, so
a nice, trim, forty seven year old woman. It's like,
oh no, it's not it can't be that, because you

(48:19):
don't fit that mold of what we're trying to do.
But to be able to do that, it really requires
that when we look at the data, when we look
at heart when we're evaluating any medication, you including women
women in trials is one thing, but you can't lump
them all together in your results. Because if it works

(48:40):
really well for men and not so great for women,
but you smash them all together, it seems like it's working,
you know. And to say that you can't disaggregate data,
and this is sort of where we are now by race,
or we can't disaggregate data by gender. We are losing
value information because guess what things don't work the same

(49:03):
in women as they work in men. We do have
a totally separate hormonal milieu that medications have to work in.
And that's my fear that even if we have women
in trials, if you don't separate them and report out separately,
will lose a lot. And then when it comes to race,

(49:24):
the you know, the same thing is happening in race.
It's like when it says if any studies that say
disparities or race or gender or any of the things
that these charged words, then if we're not going to
study them, then how will we know. I mean, and

(49:45):
you know, one of my issues that I work on
a lot is that that is the racial disparities in
healthcare in this country. And they are bad, and they've
been bad. You know, it's not like this is a
new situation here. You would think that the disparities and
all that means is, you know, what is it for

(50:06):
the majority population and what is it in African American
name anything, and it's worse. And it's not just maternal mortality.
That's that's the least of the issues in terms of
the disparity heart attacks, strokes, Alzheimer's, obesity, you know, any
chronic disease and you can use that same two to
three times multiplier. We've known this since for as long

(50:31):
as we have kept healthcare statistics. The only thing that's
happened as we've gotten better at treating things, the overall
numbers have gotten better for everybody. You know, I mean,
breast cancer used to be a death sentence, you know,
seventy five years ago. Guess what it's not now ninety

(50:51):
percent of women who are diagnosed early will live. Yay,
But guess what. The disparity still exists between black and
white women. And the better the treatment gets. Here's the
little conundrum here. The better the treatment gets, the larger
the disparity gets between black and white. And that is
because you don't have access. It's not like you got

(51:15):
some new genes and all of a sudden, you know
you're doing worse. It's the environment that we find ourselves.
Is lack of education, is of access to quality care.
All of those things are far more important than anybody's
racial composition. You could take a poor white person from Appalaysia,

(51:37):
put them, you know, and look at those and say, WHOA,
those are worse too? Do they have different genes from
another Scottish American who is living in New York City. No,
they don't, but the environment is different. And I think
that unless until we stop blaming individuals or individual racial
groups for poor outcomes on or behavior. You know, if

(52:02):
you would just stop doing any number of things, you'd
be better and just understanding that the problems really exist
outside the individual and those are the things that we
choose not to address. Is now that we can't there again,
they're quite figure outable and we've known them forever. We
just do nothing about it. And this is you can

(52:24):
go through study after study after study from the I
mean when I say the early nineteen hundreds to today
and those same disparities and the only thing that's changed is,
like I said, the overall numbers down, the disparities still exist.

Speaker 1 (52:39):
Yeah, and we do. We've talked about this before on
the show. There's a lot of moralizing around. Yeah, you
should if you just ate correctly, if you exercised correctly,
this is all right on you. I remember my dad
he was diagnosed with cancer and they told him you
should have been coming for a check every year, and

(53:01):
he had been coming in for a check every year,
like kind of turning it on the patient and Samantha
and I've kind of talked to about that a lot
of having bad doctor experiences and trying not to get
turned off by that. So, as someone who is looking
for a doctor right now, what are some things you

(53:22):
think people should look for they're trying to find a
good doctor.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
I'm going to tell you, Annie, And it would take
too long to do this, but I have a whole
that's the whole first chapter of my book is how
do you pick a doctor?

Speaker 3 (53:35):
You know?

Speaker 2 (53:35):
What do you even look at? Where do you go?
How do you evaluate them at? You know? And I
put in it's very actionable items, because here's the other
thing that you say, Okay, we'll go on the internet
and whatever. But there's so much information. How do you
know what's good information, what's bad information? How do you
know someone someone's telling you to do something and then
someone's telling you to do the exact opposite of that.

(53:57):
So what I did, in addition to giving really on
crete advice, is that I have references in the back
of my book and resources, just resources. So I'm like,
if you're going to go and you want to know about,
you know, how do I evaluate my doctor? How do
I check and see, ooh, does this doctor have you know,
one hundred and fifty lawsuits out outstanding? You know, do

(54:19):
they have a dui or any of those things. You
can go to those references and say per chapter and
look at them and say, all right, this is how
I valuate it. But don't discount. Don't discount your gut, okay,
because you can have the most credentialed doctor in the
world who is an apple, you know, and if they

(54:41):
make you feel like, you know whatever and put you off,
then that's not a good fit. So it's not just
the credentials. That's a that's a minimum. You know, is
my doctor board certified? You know? Do they have other
issues that are outstanding? And then you go from that
to okay, then what do I feel in this interaction?

(55:03):
And trust it? You know, just like you would trust
anything else. And when you're in a doctor's office, you
should feel I say, you should feel seen, heard, and
respect it. And if that's if those three basic things
can't be met, then it doesn't matter where your doctor
went to med school. It really doesn't.

Speaker 3 (55:23):
I haven't thought of that as a process, but now
you're making me think of things about self respecting doctors.

Speaker 2 (55:29):
Okay, I mean that's the minimum. I mean that's the minimum.
I mean we as doctors, no matter how we want
to see ourselves. We're in a service industry, you know,
and my job is to make sure that your needs
are met. However that needs to be done. And you know,

(55:50):
and occasionally, and I will say this occasionally, occasionally, sometimes
I will have something or there'll be something that's so
specific that, yeah, sometimes you might need to see that all,
you know, if you've got us, if you've got and
I'll give you an example, my daughter and I happen
to have a lovely neurosurgeon that I sent my daughter to.

(56:11):
But but sometimes it's like there are people that what
they do is so specific, you know, And yes, you
need common things you don't need to see that person for.
But if you have that one thing that this person
is the world export in and you're going to see them,
you know, once or twice and get that resolve, then

(56:33):
hold your nose and see them. I get. But I
warn patients before I see them. I'm like, I'm just
gonna tell you he's a little bit of a jerk,
but we need this fixed. And he's he or she
is the person to fix it. And I say that
sounds very sexist, but it is true. But it is
usually a he who's a jerky Yeah, I said it,

(56:55):
but you know what I mean. And so that's why
I said, know your mission. You know what am I
there for? Is this someone I'm going to spend the
next twenty years with? And no, you need a better
person that you have rapport with. But this is something
I'm there for, a specific thing, and this person is
the best in the world at that thing. Then do
that right, deal with you know, then talk to your

(57:16):
other doctor later about it.

Speaker 4 (57:17):
Look for the results, not necessarily for a pat on
the back.

Speaker 2 (57:20):
I like it.

Speaker 3 (57:31):
Well, I'm going to tell you this, like having you
on the show is a dream, and obviously you are
a podcaster's dream, especially when it comes to intersectional feminism
and in this conversation, and I know you are now
in this podcasting world. You've been in this podcasting world
for a minute. I mean again, you're with Michelle Obama
talking about so many things. But as you are in

(57:52):
this world officially with your podcast being released, what are
some of the takeaways you have from doing this podcast
and or from the interviews like, have you learned something
new or something that was like stood out to you already?

Speaker 2 (58:08):
Well, you know, I hope to learn a lot of
things because, as I said, I don't know everything. I
know what I know, but I have a very low
bar for things that I don't know. I will do
the vetting for you, because see, I will get the
experts that I know in trust, and I think that

(58:28):
there is an opinion that is worth having that. So
that's the whole purpose of the second opinion. I will
learn things you know about things that I don't treat,
you know. So it's not just a show about menopause.
It is about all things women's health. So we will
talk about gynecologic things, we'll talk about herd health, we'll
talk about I have a whole show that I loved

(58:49):
on GLP ones, because that's something even when I at
the time I wrote my book, I hadn't really taken
care of anyone who was on GOLP one. So I
didn't really and I very clear about them. I'm like, I,
you know, I don't really know it's it's it's not
my thing. But now I understand some things about GLP
ones now talking to an expert that I didn't know

(59:12):
going into it, So that's it's going to be too pronged.
There'll be things that I want you to know some
experts and to see what the experts have to say
about it. That's my second opinion. And then as a
result of that we all get smarter. I'll learn something
I didn't know either, so you know, next time someone
asked me, I'll know what.

Speaker 4 (59:30):
You're say.

Speaker 3 (59:33):
That.

Speaker 1 (59:34):
Curiosity is so valuable and refreshing too, like going back
to admitting what you don't know and what you do
know and being very clear about that. And one thing
that I got when I was listening to the podcast
was I did feel really empowered and validated of like, Okay,
so I'm not the only one who thinks this. I'm

(59:56):
not the only one who has all these questions about this,
and maybe we don't have the answers yet, but at
least I'm not the only one who's asking these questions.
And I think that that's something that I know is
important to you, is empowering women people to make these
healthcare decisions, to have this knowledge for it to be

(01:00:16):
more accessible. So what is it that you're really hoping
people take away from this podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:00:23):
You know, I am hoping that at the end of
every episode that you walk away with something, some knowledge
you did not have at the beginning, and you'll be
able to use that knowledge to effectively advocate, maybe not
for you, but for your friends. So the next person
who comes up with that and say, you know what,
perhaps you should take a look at this because it's

(01:00:47):
so important. And the message I want to give is
not to It's not gloom and doom. Oh my god, women,
we have so much stuff and it's going to be terrible,
and you know, getting old is horrible. No, it's not.
I mean, you know, and you know I don't mind
saying it. You know, I'm sixty six years old, you know,
and I've pivoted, I'm doing different things in life. I
feel as good now as I've ever felt. But I

(01:01:09):
also want that to be the expectation. If I say,
where do I want you at forty to start thinking
about your life as sixty. I want you to think
of it as something great, not something you know, like,
oh then what I'm you know. No, don't don't think
that the inevitable is decline followed by death. You know

(01:01:33):
it can be, but just know that you have the
ability to change that trajectory. Regardless of what your family
history is and regardless of what your current health situation is,
you can make it better. You know, there's never too
late to start. But I like to get people really
early in this process and get them invested in their

(01:01:55):
health and making them understand that you know, oh, Okay,
your mother had breast cancer. I've had two sisters with
breast cancer. That doesn't mean I'm going to get it.
There are I may or I may not, but understand
the things that I can do along the way that
minimize my risk. You know, nothing is inevitable. There are
very few things that are strictly genetic, very few things,

(01:02:18):
and even with genes, how those genes interact in the
environment that you're in matter. So, you know, I think
that overall, the message that I want to have is
really a hopeful one, and that I want you to
feel is that, yeah, I feel empowered because the course
of my health is going to be determined by what

(01:02:38):
I do, not what someone does for me after the fact.
You know. So there's a there's a huge prevention message
that I want people to get, and I think once
you explain to people why it's important you get complying.
I mean, you know, people will comply. No one wants
to feel bad. And I I have always found that

(01:03:01):
to be a much more potent motivator when I'm talking
to my patients, to tell them why not just do it?
And then you know what, most of them do they
hear it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:14):
I love that. Yes, And as we said, this is
such a needed it has been such a needed conversation.
Very glad it's happening right now. And you you seem
like someone who has a lot of stuff going on.
Do you have any other things on the horizon that
you're excited about that you want to talk about?

Speaker 2 (01:03:33):
Oh my god, that's enough. I mean, that's fair. I have,
you know, I have my I continue I still you know,
my my my heart is always with the menopausal woman.
So I love my perimenopause and menopausal work, and I
will continue to do that with alloy because again, my

(01:03:54):
mission is access and affordability. It doesn't do anyone any
good to edge you about all this great menopausal stuff
or whatever and then you're like, oh great, and then
you can't find a new place to go. So access
is important to me, and you know, and so I
will always continue to do that. I hope that the
podcast is helpful, you know, and that that's my goal,

(01:04:16):
because I you know, I have no you know, I
cannot say that I harbored a secret desire to be
a podcaster. That wasn't that wasn't on my BINGO card.
But if it can serve a purpose, then I'm all in.
And I really want listeners to understand same thing I
want to hear from them. I want to hear what

(01:04:38):
do you want to know about? Because remember, you're only
going to get that fifteen minute visit in your doctor's office,
and only about five to seven minutes of that has
spent with the doctor. So what are all the things
of other than that five to seven minutes that we
can sort of help expand during this time. And that's
really my goal for the podcast. And if I can

(01:04:58):
do that, then hey, I've done my job.

Speaker 1 (01:05:01):
Yes, yes, And it's it's such important information because no
one teaches you that, no one teaches you how to
go to the doctor and what to say and what
to do, and.

Speaker 2 (01:05:13):
You know, and we're going to shed all this shame
and stigma about women and women's bodies, you know, and
the one thing that I'm really encouraged by is that
I just did Oh my godness, I did three events
in New York this past weekend. And over the years,
the number, just the appetite for this conversation is growing,

(01:05:37):
and women are so grateful to be able to have it.
And I'm just amazed at the things that people will
say out loud. Let me just say, twenty years ago,
no one would have ever said these things. They'll get
out there open mic. Oh and by the way, you know,
I was having and I was like, oh, okay, well,
you know, I'm not embarrassed, and I'm glad you're not,

(01:05:59):
because we're just going to put it all out here
and answer these questions. But the one thing I want
also people to understand is that women's health is everybody's issue.
It's not just women's health. Because what we we're the
center of focus in families. We're either caregiving for elders,

(01:06:20):
or we're taking care of children, or we're navigating the
health care for everybody in our space. So keeping us
healthy and happy should be everybody's goal. It's not just
a women's issue. Men should be out here advocating for
this as well, and men need to be educated about menopause,
as do family members, so you can have a little

(01:06:42):
bit of grace and understand what's going on in this
space without thinking. You know, again, don't perpetuate those stereotypes
moms crazy, you know, Oh, I can't believe she's so
out of control. You know, those kinds of things that
we have been saying about women imperimenopause for way too long.
We're going to have We're going to have to shed

(01:07:02):
that and I think that the more we know, the
more we're able to navigate this space, not just individually
but collectively. There is for your perimenopausal and menopausal women.
Because the one thing that has been a problem is
the really the lack of research and the lack of
federal funds that have gone into conditions that affect women,

(01:07:25):
not just menopause. Everything forty five billion dollars in twenty
twenty two, less than eleven percent of that went to
conditions that affect women exclusively. We're fifty one percent of
the population. How do we get eleven percent of the
budget and that includes you know, polycystic o varying disease, fibroids, migraines,

(01:07:45):
autoimmune diseases, all these things that disproportionately affect women that
we have just said, oh well, you know, women, what
are you going to do? You know, that's no longer
an acceptable answer. So we want to make sure that
people know how to effective life advocate not just for yourself,
but again collectively, or what I call the big A advocacy.

(01:08:07):
You know, right, your legislator, state legislators, right, your governor, right,
your you know, your congress people, and we have bills now,
and well we have bills in Congress, so good luck
with that, right, but they are there waiting to be
voted on. But just really to elevate the issues of
women's health. As I said, it's in everyone's best interest.

(01:08:31):
And for those who want to have an idea of
what to do, there is the Citizen's Guide to Menopause
Advocacy that actually lays it out. You can just you know,
google it, find it, and it actually lays out you know,
what do you say? What do you right? What are
the things that are important? And it makes sure that
that that's how we are going to move the needle.

(01:08:52):
We're going to really have to you know, advocate for
ourselves collectively. In addition to the advocation see that we
have to do one on one in doctor's offices every day.

Speaker 1 (01:09:04):
Absolutely and we have loved having you on today, Doctor Sharon.
This has been so fantastic. H thank you, thank you,
thank you for being here and for all of the
great information. Where can the good listeners find you?

Speaker 2 (01:09:18):
I'm on instagram S Malone, MD. I have a website,
So if anybody has questions or things that they would
like to submit that they'd like to hear about in
the second Opinion, you can go to my website doctor
Dr Sharon Malone dot com and go to the second
Opinion tab and it will also have you know things

(01:09:39):
sometimes I will do in person appearances, places and so
it we'll keep you'll have an idea of what's there,
and then you also know upcoming episodes in TSO and
also put in requests because I want to answer questions
that that people have and so the more I know
what you're interested in, the more I know about to

(01:10:00):
go out and answer those questions for you. If I
don't know myself, and I want to hear real women's
stories too, not just the experts. I want to hear
real women talking about real problems.

Speaker 1 (01:10:10):
Yes, and your podcasts the second in my second opinion,
go check.

Speaker 2 (01:10:15):
Us out with the opinion. Yes, the second opinion. You can.
You can get it wherever you get your podcasts, Apple, Spotify, YouTube,
and it's out there and it's in the world. And
we're going to have we have two episodes out now
and there will be a new episode every week every Monday,
new topic.

Speaker 1 (01:10:35):
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here. Hopefully
we can have you back again. We would love to talk.

Speaker 2 (01:10:40):
You back again. Of course. See this is easy. I
didn't have to get dressed or anything. See if I'd
known that, I was like, yeah, well next time you'll know,
a couple of times a week, no makeup, no problem, you.

Speaker 4 (01:10:52):
Want, I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:10:55):
If you would like to contact us, you can. You
can email us at Hello stuff I never told you,
find us a blue sctyp, mosta podcast or Instagram and
TikTok at stuff one never told you. We're also on YouTube.
We have new merchandise aid Cotton Bureau, and we have
a book you can get wherever you get your books.
Thanks always Tis a super producer, procedaor executive producer. My
under contributor Joey, thank you, and thanks to you for
listening stuff I never told you. Petion by heart Radio.

(01:11:16):
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, you can check
out the heart radio app, podcast or where you listen
to your favorite shows,