Gyno Girl Presents: Sex, Drugs & Hormones

Gen Z gets a bad rap for being lazy, but they're actually the most entrepreneurial generation we've ever had. Calle Foster, a leadership coach who spent 12 years in corporate learning and development, explains why that stereotype is costing you as a leader.

The real issue? It's how we're leading them. Gen Z was raised in a very different world than previous generations, and that context shaped how they show up at work. When leaders come at them with command and control, they shut down. They internalize it as their fault. They need guides, not controllers.

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AI is making people in medicine nervous. Doctors worry it's going to replace them. But Dr. Ami Bhatt, Chief Innovation Officer at the American College of Cardiology and Chair of the FDA Digital Health Advisory Committee, has a different take.

She explains what collaborative intelligence actually means and why clinicians shouldn't be scared. We talk about how wearables are giving women the data they need to advocate for themselves when doctors dismiss them. We also get into the bias that's built into AI algorithms and what it means when the technology learns your preferences.

Women...

For decades, men had Viagra. Women were told to relax and have a glass of wine. That imbalance in pharmaceutical innovation is finally changing, but it hasn't been easy.

In this episode, I talk with Sabrina Johnson, the founder and CEO of Dare Bioscience the only publicly traded pharmaceutical company focused entirely on women's healthcare. We discuss why the pharmaceutical industry has historically avoided investing in women's sexual health, the stigma and sexism that surrounds female arousal and pleasure, and what it actually takes to develop and bring products to market.

Sabrina walks us through...

Kids' mental health looks different now than it did a decade ago. More kids are struggling with anxiety, OCD, and ADHD, and parents are often unsure whether what they're seeing is normal or something that needs professional help.

In this episode, Dr. John Parkhurst, a child psychologist at Northwestern, helps us understand what's really happening with kids right now. He explains why anxiety spikes during puberty, how to recognize the difference between typical worry and an anxiety disorder, and what sets anxiety apart from OCD. We also talk about ADHD, executive function, and the treatment options that...

Trauma shows up in unexpected ways. Chronic pelvic pain. Lost desire. The inability to tolerate a pelvic exam.

These aren't always about what happened last week sometimes they're about what happened decades ago. In this episode, I talk with Brooke Bralove, a psychotherapist and sex therapist, about Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) a treatment that works differently than traditional talk therapy.

Instead of processing trauma over years, ART can resolve it in 1-5 sessions using rapid eye movement and image replacement. Brooke walks through what actually happens in an ART session and shares patient stories showing...

Women's health is a team sport. That's something we've all learned the hard way—not in residency, but years later when we realized how much we weren't taught about vulvovaginal health.

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Meredith McClure from Dallas and Dr. Ashley Fuller from Seattle. They co-host the Labialogic podcast and both specialize in treating the conditions that most doctors either miss or dismiss—lichen sclerosus, desquamative inflammatory vaginitis, recurrent BV and yeast infections that won't go away.

All three of us left obstetrics years ago and now run gynecology-only practices. And...

Endometriosis is often talked about as a pelvic disease, but it's actually a systemic inflammatory condition that affects the entire body. And the way we diagnose and treat it is still failing too many patients.

In this episode, I sit down with Jandra Mueller, a pelvic floor physical therapist in San Diego and the incoming educational chair for the International Society for the Study of Women's Sexual Health. Jandra specializes in treating patients with endometriosis and has a unique perspective both as a clinician and as someone who went through the diagnostic odyssey herself.

Her...

This week we welcome Beth Crosby, aka Garbage Mom, to the show. Beth is an actress, comedian, and content creator.

She started creating content during the pandemic as an outlet to connect with other women and share in the perimenopause transition. She now has over 250k subscribers and is the creator of Perimenapalooza™.

We talk about her symptoms of perimenopause and how anxiety was one of the worst. We also chat about being in an industry that works last minute and isn't conducive to women being mothers.

She shares how she had undiagnosed ce...

We start with a frustrating reality: 70% of OB-GYNs never ask patients about orgasm. And when women finally get the courage to bring it up themselves, the answer is usually "I'm so sorry, this just happens when you age."

I ask Dr. Streicher to break down what an orgasm actually is and why arousal has to happen first. We discuss the different types of orgasms clitoral, cervical, and the controversial G-spot. Dr. Streicher shares the fascinating Maria Bonaparte research from the 1920s that discovered the 2.5 centimeter rule and why anatomical distance matters for orgasm during intercourse.

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Why do so many women with chronic pelvic pain get told "this is just motherhood" or "it'll get better when you go through menopause"? What if the heaviness, the aching, the constant discomfort isn't something you have to live with?

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Julie Baron, a pelvic floor physical therapist and director of Pelvic Health and Performance Center in Bellevue, Washington. Dr. Baron blew our minds at ISSWSH this year with her groundbreaking lecture on pelvic venous disorders a condition that's massively underdiagnosed and often dismissed as "just in your head."

Why are women always apologizing for their bodies? Should you feel guilty about wanting plastic surgery in midlife? And what actually happens during a labiaplasty?

In this Between Two Labia episode a subseries of the podcast filmed in my office I sit down with Dr. Dahlia Rice a board-certified plastic surgeon and owner of DMR Aesthetics Chicago.

Dr. Rice started her career doing autopsies and teaching human anatomy before becoming one of only 1,400 female board-certified plastic surgeons in the United States.

There's a misconception that labiaplasty is only cosmetic women trying to mimic...

Is age 35 really a fertility cliff? Should everyone freeze their eggs? And why does your doctor speak in such vague terms when you ask about your chances?

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Lucky Sekhon, a double board-certified reproductive endocrinologist in New York City and author of the bestselling book The Lucky Egg. Dr. Sekhon has spent years watching patients walk into her clinic overwhelmed by information that is not always true or grounded in science. This is what inspired her to write a book that could close the massive knowledge gap around fertility.

Comprehensive sexual health care requires time and a team approach. I'm joined by two of my team members Karen Badley, my nurse practitioner, and Grace Prete, our pelvic floor physical therapist.

We talk about why complex conditions like pelvic pain, painful sex, and hormonal changes don't fit into 10-minute appointments. You can't address someone's full picture when insurance only reimburses for quick visits. We discuss why multidisciplinary care matters, why pelvic floor therapy sessions need real time, and why treating hormonal health alongside aesthetics makes a difference.

This conversation is about what patients deserve and...

Katalin Rodriguez Ogren is a certified badass. She's owned POW Gym in Chicago's West Loop for 25 years, she's a lifelong martial artist who played the female ninjas in Mortal Kombat 2, and she just wrote a book on nutrition for menopause after her GP handed her marriage counseling referrals instead of addressing her hormones.

When Katalin started experiencing severe skin issues during menopause, her GP dismissed her concerns about hormones and instead gave her marriage counseling referrals. That experience led her to write a book about nutrition strategies for menopause.

We discuss functional strength training and...

Welcome to Between Two Labia, a new series filmed in my office in front of my 8-foot vulva.

When colleagues come to town, I sit down with them to talk about the things you want to ask but think you shouldn't.

These are the conversations I have with friends and colleagues that you wouldn't normally get to listen to.

Dr. Shieva Ghofrany is my first guest, and you'll see these episodes pop up from time to time between regular podcast episodes.

We discuss the weird limbo between having a baby and...

Women were were excluded from federally funded medical research until 1993. Health journalist Meghan Rabbitt interviewed over 100 female experts to create a manifesto for women's healthcare everything from why we're still learning anatomy named after dead men to why your gynecologic history affects your heart disease risk decades later.

Meghan is a health journalist who's been translating complex medical topics into accessible language for 25 years. She's spent her career asking doctors the questions patients want answered and helping women understand their bodies better. When Maria Shriver asked her to write a manifesto about women's healthcare, even with all...

Sexual medicine is underfunded, misunderstood, and often dismissed. But it's also one of the most collaborative fields in healthcare. Dr. Tami Rowen recaps this year's ISSWSH conference and what it revealed about where the field is heading.

Dr. Rowen is the current president elect of ISSWSH and has been instrumental in shaping sexual medicine education and research. We recorded this right after the 2026 ISSWSH conference in Long Beach, which had almost 600 attendeesone of our biggest conferences yet.

We discuss the standout research from the meeting, including award winning work on sexual function after gender-affirming hysterectomy...

Most people think sex therapy means Masters and Johnson-style homework or uncomfortable demonstrations. Dr. Shannon Chavez explains what it actually is—and why sexual concerns are rarely about sex at all. They're about intimacy, attachment, and learning to feel safe in your own body.

Dr. Chavez has spent her career helping individuals and couples navigate sexual shame, intimacy disorders, and compulsive behaviors through a trauma informed, non-pathologizing framework.

We discuss how shame is learned, not inherent, and why the opposite of shame is acceptance. We talk about how she approaches vaginismus and pelvic pain patients in...

Dr. Sadia Malick has practiced medicine across four countries. She's delivered babies in the UK's best hospitals and in the mountains of Pakistan where women have nothing. She's founded a charity that's saved 8,000 mothers' lives. And she's spent her career caring for women who are told their suffering is just "the age of despair."

Dr. Malick has spent her life caring for women across the UK, Pakistan, UAE, and Saudi Arabia. She founded a charity that trains midwives on clean, sanitary practices and provides lifesaving interventions to pregnant women in rural Pakistan. We discuss why 50% of global...

Your dizziness when you stand up is real. Your pelvic pain is real. Your fatigue is real. And there's actually a connection between all of it that most doctors were never taught to look for.

If you've ever been told your dizziness, palpitations, or pelvic pain is "just anxiety," this episode is for you. Dr.Dr. Alexis Cutchins is a cardiologist treating POTS and MCAS—she's willing to say 'I don't know, let's figure it out' instead of dismissing patients.

We discuss what POTS actually is, how to diagnose it why 80% of her POTS patients ha...

Can you really "have it all"? Dr. Sharon Malone OB-GYN, New York Times bestselling author of Grown Woman Talk, and Chief Medical Advisor at Alloy Health joins me for an honest conversation about what it really takes to balance medicine, motherhood, and everything in between.

Dr. Malone and I talk about the things we don't usually say out loud. How do you balance being a great doctor, a present parent, and a supportive partner when society tells you to excel at all three simultaneously?

Dr. Malone practiced medicine before and after the Women's Health Initiative...

Hysterectomy is one of the most common surgeries for women 600,000 are performed every year in the United States. But are women truly getting all their options? Board certified OBGYN Dr. Kameelah Phillips joins me to discuss her groundbreaking book The Empowered Hysterectomy and why understanding the full history and context of this surgery is essential for every woman.

In this powerful conversation, I sit down with Dr. Kameelah Phillips to discuss hysterectomies from every angle the good, the bad, and the historically traumatic. Dr. Phillips, author of The Empowered Hysterectomy, shares why she wrote a book that...

The FDA told him no in 1992. They said giving estrogen to breast cancer survivors would put women at "unacceptable risk." He did the study anyway.

Dr. Avrum Bluming is a medical oncologist, emeritus clinical professor of medicine at USC, former senior investigator for the National Cancer Institute, and co-author of Estrogen Matters. He's been fighting estrogen fear for over 30 years long before it was safe or popular to do so.

His origin story starts with his wife. At 45, she developed breast cancer. The chemotherapy he gave her threw her into premature menopause. She couldn't sleep...

There are 80 million women over 40 in America. Only 4,100 menopause certified clinicians. The gap is real. And my guest is working on changing that.

Dr. Kelly Casperson is a urologist, sexual medicine physician, and bestselling author of The Menopause Moment and You Are Not Broken. She's been leading the charge on women's health advocacy from serving on the FDA panel that removed the box warning on estrogen to pushing for testosterone deregulation. She has a large following, but as Kelly says: it's just a drop in the bucket.

HThere are 80 million women over 40 in America. Only 4,100...

What happens when your family stages an intervention because they've been avoiding you 10 days every month?

I'm sharing the story of a patient who had a complete breakdown at Christmas dinner. She snapped at her husband, her kids, her mom, her in-laws—everyone. A few hours later, her family told her: "We love you, but for 10 days every month, we actively avoid you."

She came to me asking: Am I bipolar? Am I manic? What's happening to me?

This is PMDD premenstrual dysphoric disorder. And when it collides with perimenopause, it becomes a pe...

What does it mean when 6,000 women a day enter menopause but there are only 4,100 certified clinicians to treat them?

In this year end solo episode, I'm reflecting on 2025 in women's health.

It was a year that felt heavy at the start personally for me after losing my mother, and globally with so much suffering and injustice. But even in all of that, women's health moved forward in meaningful ways. Not perfectly. Not fast enough. But enough that it deserves reflection.

I'm covering the moments that shifted conversations this year from the FDA removing...

What happens when a medication designed to help you lose weight also changes what brings you pleasure?

In this solo episode, I'm doing a deep dive into what nobody's discussing about GLP-1 medications (Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, Zepbound) and what they do to your sex life.

These medications have been absolutely transformational for metabolic disease, obesity, and cardiovascular health. But they don't just work on your gut and pancreas they work centrally in your brain, in your reward pathways, in your pleasure centers.

I'm sharing stories from my practice: the glamorous patient who suddenly...

One of my brave patients shares her story with lichen sclerosis from being dismissed and told it was "all in her head" to finding proper treatment and relief.

I'll never forget the day Jess walked into my office. By the time she found me, she'd already been dismissed by multiple doctors including specialists at what was supposed to be one of Chicago's premier women's health centers. They told her the severe pain and skin changes she was experiencing were "all in her head." Two different physicians suggested she needed a therapist, not medical treatment. Her depression history...

Have you ever wondered why trauma seems to "live" in the body? Or why so many women struggle with sexual dysfunction after difficult childbirth experiences that they're told they should just be "grateful" for?

Join me as we explore the profound connection between trauma and sexual health with Erika Kelley, an award-winning clinical psychologist who specializes in women's sexual medicine and trauma treatment.

Erika Kelley is revolutionizing how we understand and treat the intersection of PTSD and sexual dysfunction. Winner of the prestigious Irwin Goldstein Award at ISSWSH for her groundbreaking research on childbirth-related PTSD...

It's our 100th episode! I celebrate this milestone with Karen Bradley, NP, discussing the biggest wins, most common questions, and key themes from nearly two years of podcasting about women's sexual health and menopause.

We dive into the FDA's recent decision to remove the boxed warning from vaginal estrogen a huge victory for women's health advocacy. This warning has prevented countless women from getting treatment for painful sex, recurrent UTIs, and other symptoms of genitourinary syndrome of menopause.

I share a powerful story of a patient with breast cancer history who was denied hormone therapy...

Dr. Noor Al-Humaidhi is a general practitioner from New Hampshire who discovered a massive gap in midlife women's healthcare.

After experiencing perimenopausal symptoms herself and realizing how little she understood about the connection between hormones and chronic disease, she started Lifestyles by Dr. Noor a multidisciplinary practice focused on prevention, metabolic health, and helping women stop suffering through menopause.

We discuss why stress management isn't just "woo woo" but creates measurable biological changes in blood sugar and cardiovascular health, how continuous glucose monitors reveal the real-time impact of stress on your body, and why women...

Dr. Jila Senemar is a board-certified OB-GYN in Miami who's integrating longevity medicine with menopause care. After nearly two decades in traditional practice, part of her work is catching women in their 30s and 40s before chronic disease develops.

We discuss why your standard annual labs are missing the markers that actually predict heart disease and diabetes, how to finally break free from the cardio-only mentality that's keeping you from building muscle, and why eating more protein feels impossible when you've been trained to restrict food your entire life. Dr. Senemar reveals the advanced testing she runs...

Dr. Arthur "Bud" Burnett is a legend in urology whose pioneering work on nitric oxide helped make Viagra possible. As a Professor at Johns Hopkins and author of "The Manhood Prescription," he brings nearly 40 years of research to understanding how men's sexual health impacts their partners.

We discuss why erectile dysfunction in male partners directly affects female sexual dysfunction, the treatments for Peyronie's disease that most couples don't know exist, and why testosterone replacement is straightforward for men but controversial for women. Dr. Burnett explains his holistic approach beyond just prescribing pills and shares insights on helping...

Last week was the Menopause Society meeting in Orlando, and while I couldn't attend in person due to getting sick, I spent the weekend watching all the sessions remotely from bed. What struck me most were the cardiovascular sessions.

Recording this on the eve of my mother's one-year death anniversary from a massive heart attack, I want to talk about the real changes that happen when estrogen leaves the chat and why cardiovascular disease awareness among women has actually dropped from 65% to 44% in recent years.

I talk through the key cardiovascular takeaways including why white...

Have you ever felt stuck, ashamed, or just plain confused about your sexual wellness? I am so excited about today’s conversation. I am diving deep with Dr. Jennifer Litner, a brilliant sex therapist and founder of Embrace Sexual Wellness, to talk about how we can unlearn sexual shame, communicate better in relationships, and teach the next generation about healthy sexuality.

I love exploring the how sexual wellness, shame, and communication, all need to work together. Jennifer shares her journey into the world of sex therapy, why she believes naming what we do is so powerful, and ho...

You've probably heard of cancer survivors, but have you heard of previvors? These are women with genetic mutations like BRCA1, BRCA2, or CHECK2 who are at higher risk for cancer but don't have it yet. October is both Breast Cancer Awareness Month and Menopause Awareness Month, making it the perfect time to discuss genetic testing, cancer risk assessment, and what previvors need to know about their options.

Using a 28-year-old patient with CHECK2 mutation as an example, I walk through when genetic testing makes sense, how to calculate your lifetime risk, and what screening protocols change when...

If you've been following along, you may have noticed things look a bit different around my practice. In this episode, I'm sitting down with my amazing team—Karen Bradley (NP) and Grace Prete (pelvic floor PT)—to talk about why we transitioned to concierge medicine, changed our name to the GSM Collective, and what this all means for the care we provide.

We discuss how insurance restrictions meant that even when we spent 30 minutes with patients more than most providers could offer it still wasn't enough time for patients with complex conditions like PGAD, vaginismus, and chronic pelv...

Dr. Rachel Pope explains how her sister's cancer diagnosis and a patient in Malawi asking "can you fix my vagina" opened her eyes to the massive gap in sexual health education within gynecology.

As a fistula repair surgeon working in Sub-Saharan Africa for four years, Dr. Pope realized that even after successfully repairing bladder leaks, many patients couldn't have intercourse due to vaginal scar tissue yet providers never asked about sexual function.

Meanwhile, her sister battling cancer was asking basic questions about intimacy that Dr. Pope, despite all her training and a fellowship, couldn't answer.<...

This conversation with Lauren Tetenbaum revealed how her journey from reproductive rights lawyer to therapist led her to write "Millennial Menopause" after realizing she had no idea what was coming next in her late 30s. Her unique perspective combines legal advocacy, mental health expertise, and millennial pop culture references to make perimenopause education accessible and relatable.

Lauren emphasized that millennials are still being dismissed by providers with harmful phrases like "you're too young" and "your labs are normal so you're fine." She stressed that perimenopause can start in the late 30s and that normal lab results don't...

This conversation with Dr. Carolyn Moyers revealed how personal experience with perimenopause transformed her from a general OBGYN into a Menopause specialist. Her journey began when her youngest son pointed out she was getting "mean as she got older," leading her to recognize her own perimenopause symptoms and start estrogen therapy.

Dr. Moyers emphasized the critical importance of debunking perimenopause myths that continue to harm women. The most damaging myths include "it's all in your head," "your labs are normal so you're fine," "you're too young for perimenopause," and "hormone therapy just delays the inevitable." She stressed...