Overlooked: Women's Health Can't Wait
Immersive personal stories and conversations about women's health
Episodes
Why are Black women are less likely to survive endometrial cancer? It’s a deep-seated inequality, and Dr Kemi Doll has been treating patients and studying it for years. She explains what endometrial cancer is, why this lethal disparity exists, and why she thinks Black women are the ‘canary in the coal mine’ in women’s health.
More about Dr Kemi Doll - https://www.uwmedicine.org/bios/kemi-doll
What does it mean to survive a diagnosis, and live with cancer? For this episode, we return to the subject that launched the very first season of Overlooked: ovarian cancer, with Teresa Arthur - aka Golda’s Mom. Teresa was diagnosed in 2018 and has been living with recurring ovarian cancer for the last seven years, spending almost half of every year in chemotherapy treatment. She talks candidly with Golda about her health challenge...
When Jessica Baladad found a cancerous lump in her breast at 33 through a self-exam, it set her on a path not just to survive cancer but to become an advocate for women's health. She created a platform called "Feel for Your Life" to empower women to overcome fear, and financial barriers to take control of their breast health. In this conversation, Jessica shares the intimate details of her diagnosis journey, talks about why breast ...
Journalist Sally Herships has been dealing with debilitating migraines for most of her adult life. She shares her migraine audio diaries, and talks about how she has found ways to cope with migraine, which has often landed her in the emergency room. And, why is the connection between hormones and migraines so poorly understood, even though migraines affect more women than men?
Sally Herships’ work: https://www.sallyherships.com/
If you’ve had a mammogram, and your results show you have dense breast tissue - here’s what you should know about it. Radiologist Julie Gershon talks about what it means for your health, and what you should do as a next step in breast cancer screening.
More about our guest, Julie Gershon https://www.jgershon.com/
More about dense breasts: https://www.areyoudense.org/
What to listen to next: this episode about paying for breast screen...
Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder, or PMDD is a little-known and under-researched condition - a severe form of PMS. Shalene Gupta is the author of ‘The Cycle: Confronting the Pain of Periods and PMDD’, a raw account of her experience with this condition. Shalene talks about the havoc it created in her life, and the difficult path to finding effective treatment. Shalene also traces PMDD’s controversial route to formal recognition by t...
Carolyn Thomas was having a heart attack when an emergency room doctor diagnosed her with acid reflux and sent her home. For two weeks, she continued experiencing symptoms while attempting to live normally—all while her heart was in crisis. She tells this extraordinary story of survival, and talks about how it turned her into an advocate for women’s heart health. Also in this conversation: gender bias in cardiac care, why our aware...
Modern IUDs - intrauterine devices - are a safe form of contraception for most women. But this wasn’t always the case. Author Chikako Takeshita traces the history and development of these devices, originally created for population control in 1960s, and talks about one IUD in particular, the Dalkon Shield, which would cause widespread harm to the women who used it, and in some cases, had lethal consequences.
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What are the origins of HRT and estrogen therapy? Historian Alison Li takes us back to 1930s Canada, and the ‘endocrine gold rush’, when estrogen was extracted from hogs, then human placentas, and finally horses - to create the drug Premarin (the name comes from PREgnant MAre urINE). The making and marketing of estrogen therapy would shape how we think about menopause in particular, for decades to come.
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When journalist Alicia Trujillo felt a sudden, searing headache while swimming, she knew something was wrong. Doctors finally uncovered the cause a few days later - a ruptured aneurysm in her brain. In this episode, Alicia recounts the harrowing days leading up to her diagnosis, the emergency brain surgery that followed, and how it changed her outlook on life.
There's still a ton we don't know about women in midlife. Listen to othe...
Cervical cancer is preventable, but nobody really likes showing up at the gynecologist’s office to get their screening done - which is likely the reason the number of women who show up for screening has been falling. Now, a DIY screening kit will allow you to do the test at home. Dr Anita Lim is a cancer epidemiologist at King's College London and was the lead researcher on a major study measuring the effectiveness of 'self-samplin...
Despite all the noise about menopause (and there’s a lot), there’s one place where we’re still not talking about it openly, and that’s the workplace. But that’s changing - slowly. Now, some companies are offering menopause benefits too. In this episode, we look at menopause in the workplace, and hear from Sarah Shepherd (Privia Health) and Isha Viij (Maven Clinic).
Want more menopause stories? We've got you covered -
The revelation o...
Earlier this year, the CDC updated its recommendations on pain management for IUD insertion (intrauterine devices used for birth control), which prompted Carine Carmy to share her story of how an IUD insertion sent her to the emergency room with severe pain, nausea, chills and a fever. She talks about what happened, and why we should have more in-depth conversations about pain management with our healthcare providers. She’s now the...
Claire Tomkins found out she had Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in her early fifties, while going through perimenopause. When it comes to ADHD, women are generally under-diagnosed, and Claire talks about how this late diagnosis helped her understand her own actions and decisions, and the struggle of having ADHD and managing kids, jobs and relationships.
Show notes:
When Pamela Esposito-Amery discovered she had a genetic predisposition to cancer, she took a decision to undergo a full hysterectomy - which also put her in ‘surgical’ menopause. Pamela talks about the physical and emotional impact of this life-changing procedure, as well as the work of her organization, Tell Every Amazing Lady (T.E.A.L), which she started with her sister, the late Louisa M. McGregor, in Brooklyn, New York.
In this...
How do you bring women’s health innovation to life when the healthcare system is set up to resist change? In this episode, Nicole Sandford, CEO of Aspira Women’s Health, shares the hurdles her company faces in pushing forward diagnostics for ovarian cancer. As a cancer survivor, she also reflects on how her personal health journey fuels her commitment to advancing care for women.
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Episode Summary:
In this episode of Overlooked, host Golda Arthur speaks with Lucy Rudd, a biomedical scientist from the UK, who shares her powerful story of discovering a borderline ovarian tumor at just 28 years old. What began as a small lump quickly spiraled into a period of intense uncertainty, fear, and difficult decisions about her health and fertility. Lucy takes us through her journey of diagnosis, her experience with the h...
Episode Description:
What’s the difference between menopause and perimenopause anyway? Is there such a thing as menopause misinformation? Why don’t we know more about menopause and HRT? Dr. Gillian Goddard, an endocrinologist and writer behind the Hot Flash newsletter, answers these and other important questions about menopause, debunking common myths and providing practical advice for how to talk to your doctor about menop...
Brittany Chaffee talks about navigating cervical health testing, and recounts the moment she received an alarming call from her doctor, leading to years of anxiety, biopsies, and eventually, a harrowing LEEP procedure. Brittany emphasizes the importance of talking publicly about women’s health to combat shame and isolation.
Show notes:
‘The powerful act of sharing our stories about women’s health.’
Oriana Papin-Zoghbi is the co-founder of a women’s health startup called AOA Dx that is working towards early detection for ovarian cancer. Oriana talks about the challenges the company has faced in navigating the complex world of fundraising, the term ‘femtech’, and the experience of leading a startup dedicated to transforming women's health.
Want to find out what's coming next on Overlooked, or learn about the backstory to the ep...
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