← Gettin' Grown
Gettin' Grown
Second Puberty (ft. Dr. Sharon Malone & Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald)
01:51:09
Our bodies are not the problem. The systems are. Jade and Keia sit down with two brilliant Black women physicians, Dr. Sharon Malone and Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald, for an honest and expansive women's health roundtable covering perimenopause, IVF, reproductive rights, and how to advocate for yourself in systems that were never designed with you in mind.
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- [00:00]
Pharmaceutical Announcer
Eczema is unpredictable, but you can flare less with epglis, a once monthly treatment for moderate to severe eczema after an initial four month or longer dosing phase. About four in ten people taking Eblis achieved itch relief in clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks and most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing.
- [00:19]
Emplis Lebricizumab LBKZ a 250mg per 2ml injection is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema, also called atopic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies. EBGLIS can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to Ebglis. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with Ebglis before starting ebglis, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection.
- [00:53]
Ask your doctor about eglis and visit ebglis.lilly.com or call 1-800-lilyrx or 1-800-545-5979.
- [01:00]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same Premium Wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month Required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees, extra default terms@mintmobile.com.
- [01:40]
Host Jade
You know very well what you are hey hey hey you're my sugar thing hey my chocolate star I've had a few but not that many but you're the only love that gives me good and plenty.
- [02:05]
Host Kia
Come on, yeah hey hey sing.
- [02:21]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
Please.
- [02:21]
Host Jade
You know sister, I just thought, you know, in light of our extensive and necessary round table of a kitchen table, that Juicy Fruit would be the appropriate intro song. You know what I'm saying? As we are talking about our parts, I feel like I've been talking to Y' all about my parts for weeks now.
- [02:48]
Host Kia
And, oh, yes, it's a bit intimate. Very, very common fodder for our show.
- [02:55]
Dr. Sharon Malone
It is.
- [02:55]
Host Kia
Okay.
- [02:56]
Host Jade
It's like, ah, it's like somebody stabbed me in the vagina last week.
- [03:03]
Host Kia
Constantly talking about our bips and bops.
- [03:06]
Liberty Mutual Announcer
Yeah.
- [03:12]
Host Jade
Anal cramping. But I'll save that for the next.
- [03:15]
Host Kia
Oh, my God.
- [03:18]
Host Jade
Yeah.
- [03:19]
Host Kia
I think we should call it second puberty. Like, we. Thank you. Like you said.
- [03:23]
Host Jade
Yes, we should call it that. Yes.
- [03:26]
Host Kia
Yeah. Let's get to it.
- [03:28]
Host Jade
Well, you know, first of all, praise the Lord. We didn't even greet you. Praise the Lord.
- [03:32]
Host Kia
Aren't we just yapping in a full yap?
- [03:36]
Host Jade
We're coming off the heels of an incredible kitchen table conversation.
- [03:39]
Host Kia
Super good.
- [03:40]
Host Jade
So pardon us for just bursting into the room like the baby on the beat. But we're just so excited. We have one of our faves and family to the kitchen table at this point. And a new fave. Okay. And a seasoned veteran.
- [03:59]
Host Kia
Oh, my God.
- [04:02]
Host Jade
And well versed in a conversation that we really, really continue to have and want to continue to have because it's not exhaustive. As we are getting older and learning more about our bodies and new things about our bodies.
- [04:16]
Host Kia
That order.
- [04:17]
Host Jade
In that order. In that order. I also wanted to talk to them about old lady coochie smell. I know. I've talked to Dr. Wendy about it. Like, I've touched on the subject before, but I have so many more questions.
- [04:28]
Host Kia
So we need to have her back so that we might do another deeper dive.
- [04:33]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Yeah.
- [04:34]
Host Jade
Be like, all right, girl. Like, we got more so. Well, she's a regular now. Like, this is family. She's family now. So Dr. Wendy will absolutely be back. Dr. Sharon, we're gonna catch. We gonna have to catch you because you are a busy lady as well. Bookington busy. But how are you, sister? Before we get into all of that,
- [04:54]
Host Kia
listen, I am hanging in. I'm safe. I have what I need. Sort of dealing with the highs and lows, ups and downs, as we all are. But, you know, all things considered, you know, we out here, how are you? How are you feeling? Are you on the recovery?
- [05:16]
Host Jade
I'm on the mend. I'm suffering with some sleep. My sleep is off because. Yeah, when you're sleep on and off for days, you're. It messes up all your rhythm.
- [05:28]
Host Kia
Right.
- [05:28]
Host Jade
And you know, I have a problem going to bed as it is. Not for much longer, but I'm trying to, like, get my sleep back in order. My body's on the Men. I'm eating food. I'm processing whole things. I can eat spicy again. I put hot sauce on my shit. So I did Sunday dinner yesterday. I think we're on the other side of things. Thank God. So. And you know, but we are continuing with so much in this world and so much, so much in this, in this country and so, so much everywhere that I just want to find the best ways to feel good. I want to feel good. You know what I mean?
- [06:10]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
Sally, all right.
- [06:14]
Host Jade
She's mentioned multiple times tonight. So I do. I want to feel good as good as I can while everything burns around. So I'm really excited, I'm really excited for our upcoming conversation. Truly, you know, it's show a beautiful light on a topic that we keep talking about, which is our health and reproductive systems and the reaper in the system around our reproductive systems and the history around that. So, you know, we just not going to do all of that anymore. We should probably just head on over to the kitchen table and we admonish you all to really just like sit with us and really listen because we've
- [06:56]
Host Kia
grabbed your beverage, grab your snack, you know, settle in. It's a, it's a really good conversation about sort of our current experiences, but grounded in sort of like, you know, you know, a broader discussion of history and systems and how all of that has implications for what we are experiencing and how we can be proactive about our care, which is something that we prioritize around here very often, very regularly. So join us at the kitchen table and yeah, we'll catch up with you after that.
- [07:33]
Host Jade
All right, we'll see you in a moment.
- [07:35]
Host Kia
Let's do it.
- [07:47]
Host Jade
Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, and thinlmen and everybody in between to the kitchen table. This is such a special, special, special kitchen table because we've never done this before, actually. We've had guests. We've had incredible guests. We have incredible black women who have sat with us. But today we have two incredible black women of the same profession, but different generations. So we get a bevy of knowledge and we get a bevy of understanding from different angles. And I'm really excited about this roundtable. So I'm going to start us off with Dr. Sharon. Dr. Sharon Malone is a nationally recognized expert in women's health and the host of the Second opinion podcast. She's a board certified ob gyn, a national menopause practitioner and the chief medical advisor at Aloy Women's Health, a telehealth company that focuses on women over 40. Before joining Aloy Dr. Malone was a partner at one of the oldest and most successful OB GYN medical practices in Washington D.C. throughout her professional career she's been active in reproductive rights, reducing teen pregnancy and eliminating healthcare disparities. Welcome to the kitchen table, Dr. Malone. I'm going to kick it over to Kia to introduce our second guest.
- [09:05]
Host Kia
Our second.
- [09:05]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Thank you for having me.
- [09:06]
Host Kia
Yes, we're really excited.
- [09:08]
Host Jade
Please interject because I must talk.
- [09:11]
Host Kia
We're really excited to have you and also really excited to welcome back our second roundtable guest. No stranger to the kitchen table at all. Very, very excited to welcome back Dr. Win Wendy Goodall McDonald, board certified obstetrician, gynecologist, author, entrepreneur and speaker based in the shy Chicago, Illinois. Affectionately known on the interwebs as Dr. Every Woman. Dr. Wendy shares evidence based health information with a playful and innovative approach that allows for the taboo aspects of women health to merge seamlessly with daily discussion. Her recently launched Everybody brand is a collection of thoughtfully designed products that bring comfort, confidence and care to our daily routines. From a soap and balm to breathable underwear. Thank the Lord. And a multi way mirror so that we can get into our bits and bops. All lovingly formulated to use safely everywhere. Yes, even there Dr. Wendy believes that God and science are connected and as we said, she is a regular degular friend down to the kitchen table. So welcome back Dr. Wendy.
- [10:18]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
Thank you. Thanks for having me y'. All. You know I love y' all and I appreciate you any opportunity to share with the platform for sure.
- [10:24]
Host Kia
Absolutely. Absolutely.
- [10:26]
Host Jade
Ladies, we're so hype. We're so, so hyped. So we have a tradition here at the kitchen table, Dr. Malone where we like our guests to introduce themselves. We have your beautiful bios here and you're clearly very, very, very well versed in everything we're going to talk about. But we would love for you to introduce yourself to the people as you would like to. So please. We're going to kick it to you.
- [10:50]
Dr. Sharon Malone
You know again, thank you for having me because this, this is going to be a fun evening. I can tell already. And we just. Let me tell you what I've been doing. I would, I practiced, you know, medicine here in the D.C. area for, you know, over 30 years and I left private practice right at the end of 2020, at the end of COVID And you know a funny thing happens, you know, sometimes you have that opportunity to sit still and I was just doing gynecology only. And so during that time when we were in the shutdown, I was just Home for three months. And I was like, wow, I do not hate this.
- [11:28]
Host Kia
I know that's right.
- [11:31]
Dr. Sharon Malone
You know, this is kind of all right. And, you know, and it was just a moment to, to stop, you know, otherwise I would probably still be sitting in my office now seeing patients. And just that little pause allowed me to sort of stop, leave that particular phase of my life, having no place in particular to go. But you know what? When you open yourself up to possibilities in the universe, things happen. And, you know, and now I'm able to use my expertise that I have been, you know, doing for the past the half of my career, which I did a lot of menopause and perimenopausal work, and now I get to share that with many women, not just the one on one in my office every day. So this is my new mission and my particular focus is really on getting this information out to black women. Because I think that we are at the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to information. And I think it's up to us. It's like, you know, people like Dr. Wendy and me and all of us who are out here trying to make sure that we get good evidence based information. So that's been my mission.
- [12:38]
Host Kia
Thank you. And so necessary and so timely. You know, here at Getting Grown, we discuss all things adult. We call adulthood the worsthood because we're all figuring it out as we go. But I think sort of core to the work we do here around at GET and grown community that we build is us processing the different phases of life as we develop and as we evolve and doing so out loud and on purpose. Because so much of our sort of practice, culturally and conventionally, it feels like these things happen. And it seems like everybody knows what's going on and knows how to do it. But the truth is we don't have a lot of learning space to just sort of talk about life as it comes. And so excited about this generation for this conversation, for a lot of reasons, because we're able to think about this sort of season, where we are now and what we can look forward to. And I'm going to jump right in because I feel like one of the things I will say that I think was common amongst our audience and we've had this conversation before, is a lot of us millennials as we are experiencing some of the changes of entering our late 30s, early 40s, and really experiencing the full gamut of what those changes are. A lot of it feels like to me, I would say I feel kind of Blindsided. And I know that my mom went through this, my aunts went through this, my grandmother went through this, but this was not something that was conventionally discussed in open forum.
- [14:16]
Host Jade
No.
- [14:17]
Host Kia
And what I'm experiencing, like, I'll be telling my mom about these, you know, mood swings and night sweats and weight gain and all the things. And she'd be like, oh, yeah, girl. And it's like, well, girl, why didn't you tip? At what point did you think that you might want to give the doll a heads up about some of these
- [14:38]
Host Jade
things, about when this begins?
- [14:39]
Host Kia
When this begins. So talk to us a little bit about this sort of shift where we are. I feel like we're in, like a cultural shift almost. And just your experience of that, both of you, like, in your professions, like, what has it been like as the conversation has become more public?
- [14:58]
Dr. Sharon Malone
You know, that's exactly right. We, this is the phase of life that we're going to spend more time, hopefully, in our menopausal years than we are going to spend in our reproductive years. And yet. Yeah, and yet no one prepares you for it. No one says, hey, by the way, this is Come. This is coming up. It was, you know, imagine this was how it was a generation ago when young girls would go through puberty. It was the same thing. You get your period and you have no idea. You think you're dying. Well, the same thing happens towards the end of your reproductive years. All these things start coming up and no one has bothered to warn you, to say, you, look, can you give a sister a heads up? And I used to have. I honestly used to have these conversations in my office with my patients when they would get in their late 30s, in their early 40s, and I would say, hey, I'm just going to tell you this is about to happen, so don't be alarmed when it does. But when it happens, I want you to be able to say, you know, know where to come when you have questions and when you are bothered by those symptoms, because that's the time to intervene. Not, you don't have to wait. You don't have to say, oh, but, you know, no, the more, you know, ahead of time, the better you're able to prepare yourself physically and emotionally for what's about to happen. And it doesn't have to be horrible. You know, we have options. We have things. So I, I really, that's the, that's the message that I try to give women all. I'm like, don't suffer. Why? You know, there are enough things that we really don't have any control over. But the few things that we do know how to address. Let's do that. That and we know the better you'll come out on the other end of it for sure.
- [16:44]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
I want to add one little piece to that too, because, you know, I'm. I am in my. I'm 44, almost 45, and I'm. I'm definitely in the swing of the Perry's. I'm the Perry, you know, very queen. And I feel like what I'm hearing amongst my peers. Peers is in my patients that are of my same age. Because I feel like that's. I don't know if you felt that same way, Dr. Sharon. That like, as we age, our patients age. Right. So then there's almost an anticipatory dread that is happening now. So now that the conversation is starting to happen, it's like, what's about to happen to me? Am I gonna be okay? And it's like, okay, we don't have to do that. Like, to your point, it's more to me about informing people about what could be and letting them know that there are options if they experience X, Y or Z. Some people are not going to experience the, you know, the significant shifts and swings in their physical, mental, emotional health, but others will or could. And to know, okay, you're not crazy. You're not, you know, off the rocker. This is something that physiologically is happening with your body and there are things we can do about it. Because I think now too, with the information push and even the algorithms and stuff, you almost get inundated with the information.
- [17:49]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Sure.
- [17:50]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
And there's a little bit of fear that comes with that.
- [17:53]
Host Jade
Yes, absolutely.
- [17:55]
Host Kia
And it can feel psychosomatic because I feel like when you're reading about it, it's like, wait a minute, is that what's going on?
- [18:05]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
I don't know.
- [18:08]
Host Jade
It's got to be a big coincidence that all. It's not a huge coincidence. Should I say that all my friends are having trouble sleeping? Everybody's having trouble with waking up in the middle of the night or brain fog. You know what I mean? And yes, the state of the world, but also it is this. This time of life. So I'm going to be very selfish here. Y' all knew it was coming. I'm gonna be selfish. I got. I will be very transparent with. I'm going. What I have going on. Dr. Wendy, I've shared with you, but we got updates. Right. And I'm in a place where I feel very Overwhelmed because I found a wonderful OBGYN black woman years ago, and I was able to revisit her once. We had an insurance change, which was amazing. I'm now dealing with a growing fibroid that's blocking an IUD on my uterine wall. So now there is some sort of surgical procedure that has to happen. There was a bevy of tests. They couldn't find the thing through a vaginal ultrasound. They had to go through an abdominal ultrasound and then play around multiple different ways to finally find it. So now what I'm running into is my OB GYN is very seasoned as well and is not performing surgeries anymore. You know, And I'm like, girl, that's good. I love when people are able to evolve out and stay home and do whatever it is that makes them feel good. But also, like, who am I supposed to. Who does this now? She gave me two recommendations. I looked into the doctors. My spirit didn't want either one of them. So now I'm at this crossroads where I'm like, this thing has to happen, but I don't know where to go from here. What would you all tell your patients?
- [19:55]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Let me just say the one thing that as your doctors grow older, this happens to me as well. As you start to slow your practice down, to be able to be really good at the things that you do, you need to do them frequently. And you are doing your patients no service. Oh, yeah, I did one of these three months ago. The operating room and the equipment would have changed, and you don't even know what goes where. So I am all for going to. When you have something, go to someone who. When you ask, when was the last time you did this? I wanted to go yesterday or last six months ago. So, yes, finding a, you know, a good surgeon, someone who is, you know, can go in and do that. A lot of them are minimally invasive gynecologists. Some general gynecologists have very high volumes and do it, but it's really hard. Don't you find? Windy, if you're trying to do have a busy obstetric practice and trying to do surgery, it's really, you know, they're sort of two different skill sets.
- [20:57]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
Correct.
- [20:58]
Dr. Sharon Malone
So, but finding a good surgeon does not mean that that is the person you have to remain with. They're there. You are mission. You go there, you get them, you do it. You're like, okay, fine, we're good. Then you go back to your doctor, because those are, again, completely different skill sets.
- [21:15]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
Well, and I'll Add one piece, which is, I know you said your spirit, you know, didn't feel settled in either one of these people, but I would maybe back to your spirit and pray on it again. And the only reason I say that is because the doctor that your doctor recommends is typically pretty good. I'll take that person over the Yelp review. I'll take that person over the Google review because I'm not going to tell somebody to go see somebody that I don't know can do the thing and, and I don't trust with the care of my patients.
- [21:44]
Host Kia
That's a good point.
- [21:46]
Host Jade
Yes. No, that is. And if I trust her, then send you a straight.
- [21:49]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
She's not going to send you to the crazy whack job.
- [21:51]
Host Jade
It's true. One of them was a man and was like, you know, and then I'm really in this space of trying to find black women to, you know, be my. But I also know that we are a small percentage. So, you know, I'm like, I know what time it is.
- [22:08]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
I feel you. But that our, our care shouldn't suffer because our numbers aren't there.
- [22:12]
Host Kia
That's true.
- [22:13]
Host Jade
You're, you're.
- [22:14]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
Yeah.
- [22:14]
Host Jade
That's very fair. Thank you. And that's why, you see, I'm clear to transparent for all the people because we all got stuff going on, every last one of us.
- [22:23]
Dr. Sharon Malone
US.
- [22:30]
Host Jade
Healthcare in America is more inaccessible than ever. Almost one in ten Americans lack coverage. Technological advancements continue, but health disparities increase. One out of five women say they've been ignored or dismissed by a medical provider. And the data for marginalized women, well, it's even worse.
- [22:48]
Host Kia
The second opinion with Dr. Sharon starts where the disparities are most urgent and builds outward. With her warmth, clarity and 30 plus years of medical expertise, Dr. Sharon Malone makes even the most intimidating topics feel accessible, including sudden menopause after childbirth. Menopause is not your final act. Gut health, the heavy case of caregiving and Alzheimer's, hair relaxers and uterine cancer, and getting ahead of aggressive breast cancer. From dismissed symptoms to systemic failures, she's not afraid to call it out. Her compassionate approach replaces fear with understanding.
- [23:23]
Host Jade
The Second opinion with Dr. Sharon seeks to empower women and improve their health with insights, practical tools and expert advice. Because understanding women's health means listening to every woman's story.
- [23:35]
Pharmaceutical Announcer
Eczema is unpredictable, but you can flare less with ebglis, a once monthly treatment for moderate to severe eczema. After an initial four month or longer dosing phase. About four in ten people taking mglis achieved itch relief in clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks, and most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing.
- [23:55]
Emplis Lebricizumab LBKZ, a 250mg injection, is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema, also called atopic dermatitis, that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals, or who cannot use top topical therapies. EBGLIS can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to ebglis. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with Eglis before starting ebglis. Tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection.
- [24:29]
Ask your doctor about eglis and visit eglis.lilly.com or call 1-800-lilyrx or 1-800-545-5979. You know what they say. Early bird gets the ultimate vacation home. Book early and save over $120 with VRBO because early gets you closer to the action, whether it's waves lapping at the shore or snoozing in a hammock
- [24:52]
Host Kia
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- [24:57]
Pharmaceutical Announcer
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- [25:09]
Host Kia
I think Dr. Malone raises a good point though, in of vetting how how best to vet your surgeons, healthcare providers, et cetera. So I would ask sort of maybe as a follow up to Jade's question, like, are there certain questions that she should ask of these two doctors that Jade's doctor has recommended that would help her in maybe settle in her spirit a bit?
- [25:34]
Dr. Sharon Malone
You know what this would be like a setup. Like I'd be, oh, I plant, put you a plant in the audience. But in my book, see, this is all about grown ones.
- [25:44]
Host Kia
That's it.
- [25:46]
Dr. Sharon Malone
You know, even though I do talk about all the things that, you know, you will experience sort of as a grown woman in post 40. So we talk about a lot of things. But in the beginning of the book, that's what I talk about. I talk about how do you even evaluate a doctor because unfortunately you might have to do it several Times because medicine has changed your insurance change. Your doctor will leave or drop that insurance or you'll go to, you know, you get a new job. And so we don't have the kind of continuity that we used to have. I stayed in one practice in one place for 28 and a half years. So I knew you when you were in high school. I see you now in menopause. I know your mother. That is unfortunately not going to be the model going forward. So having a good set of questions to ask, ask, you know, how do you even check a doctor's credentials? All of that stuff is really. Those are the first two chapters of my book. How do you evaluate? How do you show up as a patient? And then how do you assemble your medical team? It's all in there in the first couple chapters of Grown Woman Talk. And you do have to do homework because you can't assume anymore.
- [27:00]
Host Jade
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's too much information out there and it's too much misinformation, disinformation, and mount information as well. So you're. There's an extra vetting that comes in that also comes with an extra layer of anxiety, I feel.
- [27:15]
Host Kia
Can you tell us a little bit more about grown women? You know, that's my kind of carrying on.
- [27:20]
Host Jade
Yeah.
- [27:21]
Dr. Sharon Malone
You know, I mean, that's, you know, when, When I left practice and even when I was in practice, even, Even today, this happens. And Wendy, I know you get this, too. I am the healthcare navigator for everybody I know. Right. My family, my friends, my children's friends, friends, you know, everybody. And it became, you know, abundantly clear that people are confused, you know, and they'll go into a doctor's appointment and out and leave. And they have. And I, they'll come and ask me. And I said. They said, what? And you said, what? Did you not ask them this question? People don't really know because we're beyond that time now where whatever the doctor says. Yeah, you know, that was how it used to be back in the old days. Whatever you say, Doc. Right. You know, no, you've got to be much more active in that conversation. So we talk about that. Then, you know, then I talk about. Because I explained to you why medicine has changed, you know, and I was in a private practice. I was a, you know, a business owner. I was a partner. That model doesn't really work going forward. Most doctors now are employees. They're either employed by a large hospital system or private equity group. And so you're not really in control of your time or how Long. You want to give a patient, you know, that cell, how many patients you even want to see in a day. All of these things affect how your doctor is able to interact with you. And it's not because they're trying to do a bad job. They're really not lot. It's just that, no, you know, you're not necessarily in control of that interaction. And because you're not going to have this long term, you know, sort of long history with your doctor perhaps, then you have to know. I give you the basic things about what you need to know. And, you know, we talk about hypertension and diabetes and chronic stress. I talk about fibroids. I talk about this old section in their own on female troubles. And we talk about perimenopause and menopause and what happens after that. And it's really, you know, that book, what to expect when you're expecting. Well, this book is what to expect. If you expect to live beyond 40, how are you going to navigate and. And get through this space? And I tried to think of most of the things such that, you know, I. I didn't want to write a book just about menopause because the good news is that there are a lot of menopause books out there now. Lot, you know, and I said I wanted the book to be useful. And hopefully, you know, people find that and it's very clear and it's written, you know, I write each chapter starts with a letter. It starts with the Dear Sis letters because the initial title that I wanted to give my book was A Love Letter to My Sisters. I have four. I had four sisters. I have two now. And I think about all of the challenges that they had. You know, the challenges that my mother had, the things I wish that they knew that they didn't. And now we're, you know, I sort of, being the youngest in the family, I get to tell those stories. So it's a lot of storytelling.
- [30:36]
Host Kia
I love that.
- [30:39]
Host Jade
Which is very necessary. We need that. There's always an archivist in the family and oftentimes we're called to it in some way that we don't even realize. And I think so. I think that's such a beautiful aspect. And you're right. Things have shifted so much in the medical world. I think about, first of all, Dr. Sharon, I am the soapboxer here, so I'm just going to quickly say, do you all see how capitalism ruins everything? It ruins everything. As you were talking about private equity or big hospitals, which you're right, because Mount Sinai is getting on my nerves. We don't have the small family doctors that we went to for 20 and 25 and 30 years anymore because capitalism is such a nasty monster and the way that it impacts our health should be illegal actually. Like it shouldn't be allowed to touch our health in this way. But I digress back to, back to the original point. My mother had a hysterectomy at like 37 years old because she had nine grapefruit sized fibroid tumors. My homegirl had a partial hysterectomy a couple of years ago and I was flabbergasted, right, because I had young parents. So I remember my mother's hysterectomy. My mother was 36, I was 16. So I took care of her, I pushed her around in the wheelchair, I cleaned her up. I, she was bedridden for weeks, as you all know. So I think about that and then I think about my girlfriend a couple of years ago just having a part. She's like, no, they just lasered this, this little situation. And it was, it blew my mind because the doctor told my mother the just in the 90s, you, you are, you're going to get cervical cancer. These are getting ready to take over your whole uterus. We have to take everything out now. And she's. I watched her suffer for years now. She went into menopause early because of this and I watched her suffer for years. So I, I guess my question to you all is into the both of you because doctor, Dr. Wendy, where you are right now and Dr. Sharon, where, where you have seen and where you are now as well, how do you work with that quick shift that is happening in the medical world in those ways? How do you all navigate that? How does that, how does that work professionally? I'm just so cute. I'm just curious.
- [32:58]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
It does, I mean I think speaking for myself, I actually ironically was probably one of the last. I was just talking to my husband about this yesterday, day four. Yesterday that we were, I was, I became partner in my practice. We were a private group. I was, you know, the last to buy in to my practice and my partnership before we actually a couple three years ago sold to private equity because we couldn't survive, we literally could not survive the way the payers work, the way that all the things, the buying of supplies and all that stuff, we literally would have folded had we not done something like that. And so we ended up doing it, but we did it with a private equity group that like the CEOs mom is an OB GYN. We were very selective in who we decided to join because we're like, we don't want you telling us what to do. We don't want you telling us how many patients to see in an hour. We don't want you controlling our every move. Right? And so we are very intentional within our practice about keeping that homey feel, even though we are amongst, you know, a bigger. A bigger body. And I think it's almost like anything where, you know, do you get the thing that, you know, do you want Timu or do you want a no shade to Teemo? But you know what I mean?
- [34:10]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Like, what do you want?
- [34:11]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
What are you looking for? And what kind of care are you hoping to get? And none of it's perfect. Right. But I also feel like there, yes, there has been a significant shift in the way healthcare has been disseminated, but that's also the. Where I come in, in this kind of interweb space of knowing your body. Because back in the day, you could spend an hour with your doctor, you could tell them, if they say, let's bring you in, you say, well, back 1085, you know what I mean? You know, you can do all that. You can't do all of that right now. You have to come in and be like, on February 1st, then on July, you know, you have to be specific so that your doctor can navigate your problem based on the information that you have. And that requires you to know a little bit about yourself, have a little bit of your history maybe written down or in a. In a spreadsheet or on your phone or something, maybe have looked at your vulva, you know what I mean to say, what is bothering you or have some sort of timeline. So I think that we have to partner. The patient and the healthcare provider have to partner, but you also do have to vet to the, to the degree that you can, your provider, that they're not just get in, get out, you got five minutes, you know, and I don't want to talk to you about nothing else other than what you, you know, you know what I'm saying? It's, it's, it's a delicate balance.
- [35:27]
Host Jade
Yes.
- [35:28]
Dr. Sharon Malone
And, you know, the unfortunate thing is that, you know, and really and truly, private equity and insurance companies have ruined every. Have ruined everything for doctors. They have. Now, there should be no reason why a thriving medical practice cannot survive when you've got people coming to work every day, trying to do everything they can. But the amount of infrastructure and overhead that you have to carry just to Deal with the administrative load is. Is outrageous. That's why doctors are doing it. They're not doing it because they want to. They'd rather go. We'd all rather go back and do it the old way. But you know what? It's funny. I have been. And, you know, I started. I started my. I started practice in 1992. So I started. I came in with a practice that had been in existence for 30 years before I got there. So.
- [36:22]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
Wow.
- [36:22]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Old established Washington practice. I'm there. I'm the new doctor. But I started just when managed care became a thing. Okay. And that was before whatever the doctor said. I want you to have this medication. You're gonna have this medication. Go have this procedure, have it here, have it there. Doctors were in complete control of their patient care. Then managed care comes in hmo. So now you're like, oh, you can't have that medication. Or you got, you know, you gotta do. Gotta say, mother may I? That happened. And then we thought, oh, my God, this is the end of medicine as we know it. And then you adjust. Adjust. But when you adjust, you had to work harder because now you got to work harder because you don't set the fees. You gotta, you know, you're gonna get paid what they say you're gonna get paid, which is half of what you charge. So, you know, we are now at the logical, the, the illogical end of all of this, where, you know, it's not just the, the managed care part of it, but it's economically not. Not feasible for people. You can't be a solo practitioner. You can't be a small group because you can't negotiate. And here's the problem. And I can't blame doctors. I understand why they do it, because what has, what has evolved down is concierge practices where a doctor says, I don't want. You know what? You're not going to tell me this my time is worth, but I see you know what I say is worth, and I'm not, I'm not mad at you. It is. You spend hours with the patient. You should get paid for now.
- [38:00]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
Hour.
- [38:00]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Ask a lawyer to talk to you for an hour and say, I'm only going to give you 50 cent.
- [38:09]
Host Jade
Not that people, People are doing it,
- [38:11]
Dr. Sharon Malone
they're coming out to have more control and to be able to give the kind of care that we used to give to patients. Yeah, here's the problem. Now you've got fewer doctors in the pool because anybody that can come out will. And now you have insurance. You can't afford to pay for your insurance and pay out of pocket for everything with your concierge doctor. And it's just making the shortage that
- [38:39]
Host Kia
we have even shorter. Yeah.
- [38:43]
Dr. Sharon Malone
The bottleneck just keeps getting narrow and narrower and doctors are getting squeezed. Everybody's unhappy. It's not like your doctor's not happy either. But, you know, so we have got it.
- [38:53]
Host Jade
We've got it.
- [38:54]
Dr. Sharon Malone
This is where I think we have a. An opportunity, a huge opportun community, because artificial intelligence is going to be part of it. Okay. Whether you like it or not, it's going to be there. And, you know, and it can be used for good and it can be used for evil. But I think that where I am hopeful, Wendy, for your generation is that doctors have got to be involved in the creation.
- [39:22]
Host Kia
Yes.
- [39:23]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Of the artificial intelligence. Yeah. Because otherwise you're going to recreate all of the misconceptions, all the things, particularly when it comes to racial disparity. You're just gonna move them forward and just have a. AI do it. No, this is. This is our opportunity to fix it for sure. And to not have.
- [39:42]
Host Kia
Yes.
- [39:43]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Some of these outcomes that we have. You know, you name any particular outcome for black women, it's worse. It's not. If only it were just maternal mortality. It's everything.
- [39:53]
Host Kia
Yeah. Also across all systems, like, everything. I work in education reform. And so again, we're thinking about this intersection point, that inflection point that we're in now where everyone's just trying to leverage AI and everyone's saying it'll help us to move faster. But I'm like, we're just going to power broken systems and make. Make the disparities worse and more widely felt. And, you know, it's going like, you know, you're absolutely right in that those of us, those individuals who have the expertise, the knowledge, the understanding of practice, the understanding of care, we cannot just let the technology do what it does on its own. But there has got to be meaningful integration of technology and practice. And I think these conversations are useful for us as consumers so that as we are engaging these spaces, we are positioned to be critical and interrogate, you know, and not just like, you know, like you said, there used to be a time where you could just trust and believe what the doctor says. And I think that generationally, I feel like this is a muscle that we have been having to build as a people. Now that my mom is aging and even was caring for my grandparents as they declined, I had to be the advocate in the doctor's office. Asking questions and helping my mama to know what questions she can ask, et cetera, et cetera. So I'm grateful for these conversations and for the resources like your book, Dr. Wendy's Content. All of these things help us to sort of know how to meet the moment and to do so. Ready to advocate for ourselves and our loved ones like we supposed to.
- [41:47]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Yeah, Yeah. I love Dr. Wendy's content. I always. It'll be something. It's like I find a chuckle. I'm like, okay, all right.
- [41:56]
Host Kia
Dr. Wendy makes it so real. She makes it look so normal.
- [42:00]
Host Jade
Yes.
- [42:01]
Host Kia
There's also so much stigma. I love that. I think Dr. Wendy helps us to not be cringy and uncomfortable about talking about. Exactly, exactly.
- [42:15]
Dr. Sharon Malone
We have got to stop being ashamed of everything that women's bodies do.
- [42:20]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
Correct?
- [42:21]
Host Jade
Absolutely. Especially when it happens naturally.
- [42:23]
Dr. Sharon Malone
And you.
- [42:24]
Host Jade
And you know, you came out of one. So everybody grew up. Like when we were at our live show, actually. And you remember, Dr. Wendy, at our live show in Chicago this past summer, we had, obviously we have a predominantly woman audience, but we had a lot of men too. And when I. It got intimate up in there. Dr. Sharon. Okay, the girls, they were like, well, this is my chance, so hand me the microphone. I got questions. They're like, can I put books?
- [42:56]
Host Kia
I do remember that.
- [42:57]
Host Jade
Manners of all manners of things. And it was a free flowing conversation. And after it, my cousin was also one of the attendees. And he told my homegirl as he was, he goes, there was not a bit of me that was uncomfortable with this. I have a wife, I got daughters. And so I really appreciated the way that you all candidly had these conversations. And I'm just glad that we've gotten out of the douche with Lysol era of life where we can be honest about what our bodies do, ask the proper questions, so we know how to address these things properly. I do wanna go back a little bit. Dr. Sharon, can you tell us how you even got. Cause we got Dr. Wendy's origin story. But can you tell us how you even started with this practice and what, what brought you here and was this your calling? Like, I'd love to. We want to hear your organization origin.
- [43:46]
Dr. Sharon Malone
As I said, I'm from Mobile, Alabama. Moved around a lot after the age of 12. My mom died of colon cancer when I was 12. And I just remember even as a child how, you know, how you don't know what the answer is, but you know that that's not the way to do it.
- [44:05]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
Yeah.
- [44:06]
Dr. Sharon Malone
And I remember thinking, my mother, who you know, eight kids, you know, knew how to do everything, grew up in the country. You know, she had a remedy for. And. But she grew up in a very racist, deprived environment. So she had no relationship with doctors. We didn't go to the doctors. The notion that you would go to a doctor for prevention, it's like, what, you're not sick? You had to be sick sick to go to the doctor. And I literally lived next door to the hospital, but it was a segregated hospital. And, you know, my mother, when we moved there, you know, well before I was born, and my mother had the sister who next to me in that segregated hospital, and she chose not to have me there. I was born at home. So that tells you the lack of care and concern. So it's not surprising to me now that when. I don't know how long my mother suffered with her symptoms of colon cancer, you know, I'm sure she must have been pain. It was something, but she didn't know. But she didn't have any sense that there was anybody that was going to help her. So she was diagnosed way too late. And I just remember being a little girl and being at the hospital and the doctor came in. The doctor took her to surgery. You know, old white guy. And my dad and I and my other sister, we were standing. We were waiting in the waiting room, and he came out and he literally said in the middle of the waiting room, he said, well, we went in and it's everywhere, so it's nothing we could do. So we just closed her up. Now I'm 12, and I'm sitting there, and he said. And I don't know who said it or why, whatever, but he said my dad or something were like, well, how long do you think, doc? And he said, I'll give her six months. Now he says that in earshot of everybody in the room. Two other us. I'm a child. And this is how he says. And I was like, wow, that seems rough. Yeah, you know.
- [46:17]
Host Jade
Yeah, that's kind of.
- [46:18]
Dr. Sharon Malone
So my point was, I always had this. This thought in my mind. I'm like, I think this could be done differently, for sure, you know, So I sort of gravitated to medicine because, you know, again, you know, you grow up and you say, if you're smart. And in my era, it wasn't. But so you didn't have so many career choices. You could be a doctor, doctor, lawyer, nurse, or teacher. That was about it. And that fit. And. And I. When I got to this, and this is why I said, it's I think it was natural for me to come into women's health because I grew up in the presence of women. Like I said, I have four older sisters. I also have three older brothers, but I was always in the presence of women. And, you know, and I wanted to bring that sort of sensitivity to the conversations because I didn't want anyone to go into. To come into an office and feel disrespected or unseen or unheard in that relationship. And that, that was what I brought to the conversation, because I get it. It's not like I. You have to explain health disparities to me. It's like I live them. I know, exactly. It's like, so, you know, that's sort of how I ended up here. And, you know, as we say, the rest is history. I came to. To. I thought I was going to move to Atlanta to, you know, black heaven.
- [47:42]
Host Jade
Okay, Black Mecca. You went to D.C. the original. Another black Mecca. At one point. Okay, at one point. At one point.
- [47:55]
Host Kia
Formerly known as. Yes.
- [47:57]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Yeah. Now it's not.
- [48:00]
Host Jade
It's like, yeah, like, at this point, it ain't Brooklyn either. Oh, no. We don't know what, what we're doing here. Thank you for sharing that, Dr. Sharon. Actually, Dr. Wendy, I don't think we. I know we've touched on it before, but do you have anything for yourself, actually, that's informed your bedside manner and how you deal with your patients as well? I'm just curious.
- [48:26]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
Yes. I think that my. So I'm from. My mom is from Mississippi. My dad's from West Virginia. My. I very, very distinctly remember when I was about to start my period. Period. Went to pediatrician. It's all white man. He was cool, no shade, but, you know, he wasn't friendly per se. But I didn't. I don't remember any negativity, but nonetheless, he gave me this box, period box. And I remember my mom giving it to me. And I remember sitting on my bathroom floor and opening it up and just going through the different things. Like, what's this opening stuff up? I'm looking at this. I, you know, this little obt. Remember OB Tampons that, like, didn't have a applicator.
- [49:05]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [49:06]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
I started my period. I'm like, okay, where's this going? It had a little, little fold out.
- [49:10]
Host Kia
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [49:12]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
Could not get that. You know, I'm like, I'm 12. I'm like 1112. And I'm like, could not do nothing with that, you know, And I don't know why I try but nonetheless, I had zero guidance. Right. I'm not gonna say that informed my healthcare, but the reason I bring it up is because it's probably why you see what, what you guys see from me on the Internet. Because it's, it's where I came from. I came from literally really knowing nothing, you know, not being told a thing. I had a very happy childhood in the sense that I was raised two parent household. You know, my dad, you know, my dad brought Popeyes to Chicago. We were relatively affluent in some ways in Chicago, despite my parents humble beginnings. But, but medical and health knowledge was nowhere to be found. You know, and I think it's because my mother wasn't taught this stuff and it was all taboo. The whole like, you don't talk about it, you don't say nothing about it. I don't know. I remember when my mom had her hysterectomy me, I didn't know what she was having. I remember going to the hospital to see her. I jumped to give her a hug. She's like. And you know, later to find out this woman had just been cut, you know, giving her talk about it to this day. You know what I mean? So now for me it's where do. How do I bring you from where I was to where I am now? You know, how do you now know the names of your parts? How do you now understand that this charge is okay day. How do you know when bleeding is too heavy, you know, or too light like, and too light is hard, but you know, nonetheless, like let's, let's talk about these things from a space of, you know, you don't know. And that's okay. It's not your fault for not knowing. It's, it's. No one taught you. No one taught me either. So like how can we now connect those dots, you know, apart from the, the medical training. And I do feel like this, I don't know if you think this too, that's sharing that like, like, you know, doctors for so long there was such a generational thing like your, maybe your parent was a doctor or maybe your, you know, your colleagues. And so they all kind of know something. They all kind of come from this. And so there may be even a separation of patient versus doctor, like that paternalistic relationship. I know something that you don't know. But now I feel like because there's so many of us that are not necessarily coming from this healthcare background, we have more perspectives than maybe the, the doctors of old where they just were like, well, use these people. They don't know about their bodies. Well, why don't you. Why can't you, you know, as much as your brain works like my brain works. So why can't we both understand this? You know, like, you don't have to be at a different level of health education than I am just because I have a degree, if that makes sense. It makes some sense.
- [51:45]
Host Jade
Absolutely. We used to see such a boom of teen pregnancies when we were younger. Right, right. Especially in our generation. We. I don't know, Dr. Sharon, I don't know if you know the legend of the baby fat jacket, but, but when we were in school, you know, we had that. There was, there was just always a trope around if, if a girl wore a baby fat jacket and every season she was, you know, carrying a little one. And then we had movies like Just Another Girl in the IRT and you know, et cetera, et cetera. And I, and part of your bio that I was reading before is that you have helped bring awareness around bringing down teen pregnancy rates. Can you speak more to that, please?
- [52:32]
Dr. Sharon Malone
It's funny because I was talking about this earlier today when, when I was just started practice. I used to be on the board of a organization called the DC Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. Pregnancy. And let me tell you how we thought about teen pregnancy. Yes, it was high, and particularly in D.C. and in particularly Ward 7 and 8, which is where all the black people live. And there was a goal and that was a, a woman who ran the organization, Black woman Love her. And we were all, you know, it was all about getting education and birth control kids because we were going to cut the teen pregnancy in half by, you know, that must have been like by 1997, seven. And then we're going to do, every five years we're going to cut it down. Well, guess what? We did a really good job because the teen pregnancy is really low. Now. Here's, here's the, here's the sort of, the enigma about the, the myth of the teen pregnancy. When we were talking about maternal mortality, when we were talking about preeclampsia, when we were talking about preterm births, we always have to find somebody to blame. It's like black people. It's just something you doing wrong. Okay? All these teen pregnancies, that's what's driving the preeclampsia, the prematurity rate, whatever. Okay, well, guess what? Teen pregnancies are down. Why is it still there is worse. Because it's, you know, and that's the, the, the problem Is like, yeah, good news. We don't have as many young people out here who are having babies because. But that's just education and access to birth control and making sure that we have things like long acting, reversible birth control. You know, like, we had depo proveras and IUDs and all that are much more readily available now to young people than they were. So yay on that. But, you know, there is this. This is the thing that drives me now is that as we talk about all these health things, we. And I say we, I'm going to include myself in this. We like to attribute poor outcomes to poor behavior. Because if you blame the people that, that actually are having the poor outcomes, it relieves you of the responsibility of addressing the real drivers of health. Lack of education, lack of insurance. You know, how about lack of access to quality health care? All of these things. You know, where you live, you live in a, you know, polluted environment. You, you know, all of these what we call the social determinants of health. And, and we are still in 2026, trying to blame black women. If you would just stop being fat. If you would just stop doing this. If you would stop. Look, it goes from one thing to the other. We went from perming your hair is the reason why uterine cancer is up. It's not okay. Now it's your we.
- [55:35]
Host Kia
It's.
- [55:36]
Dr. Sharon Malone
It's always. And two things can be true. You know, Eve, hair.
- [55:41]
Host Jade
Sorry. I was like. I'm sorry.
- [55:53]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Can be true.
- [55:54]
Host Jade
Yeah.
- [55:57]
Dr. Sharon Malone
All of the stuff that, that you. That we put in our bodies.
- [56:00]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
Absolutely. Absolutely correct.
- [56:02]
Dr. Sharon Malone
But is that. That's this much. What about all the other stuff?
- [56:06]
Host Kia
Right. Yeah.
- [56:07]
Dr. Sharon Malone
And, you know, and that's sort of where I'm trying to get people to, to sort of see that stop blaming people for their outcomes. Lifestyle is important. Yes. But you know what? To be able to do all these lifestyle things, you have to be able to have the money and the access and the ability. Ability to do these things.
- [56:28]
Host Kia
Broken systems. Broken systems.
- [56:32]
Dr. Sharon Malone
And it's always been broken.
- [56:33]
Host Kia
Correct.
- [56:34]
Dr. Sharon Malone
I just did a talk last week. I did a, A talk at the Society for Gynecologic Surgeons, so out in Arizona. And I was trying to decide what I was going to talk to because, you know, good news, bad news, but good news is that OB GYNs, we have the highest percentage of black women in OB, in OBGYN than any other specialty.
- [56:57]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
Right. On a lot of black women.
- [57:00]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Well, a lot is a relative number. You know, we are probably
- [57:05]
Host Kia
carried away.
- [57:08]
Dr. Sharon Malone
That's not true when it comes to. When you get into the subspecialties of obg. Right.
- [57:14]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
Okay.
- [57:15]
Dr. Sharon Malone
So now this society of gynecologic surgeons, the ones who are the Eurogynes, all of these people, you know, it gets. The numbers get smaller and smaller. And so I was trying to figure out what am I going to talk to them about. And I was like, I, I don't want to talk to them about menopause. I said, we're going to do a historical run through. Why, why are we here? And you know, and kind of went through the misogyny that's been baked into the cake of medicine since we were never in that.
- [57:46]
Host Jade
And white supremacy. But sorry.
- [57:50]
Dr. Sharon Malone
So when you want to say why are here? It's like, well, we're here because we were never even considered correct in the things that you're talking about. We are, we are the subjects upon which we are, you know, experimented and operated on and all this, but never given the consideration for how do we address these issues. So, you know, we kind of went there. I don't know, you know, as I, as I finished, the applause was like
- [58:19]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
ready. They weren't ready.
- [58:20]
Host Jade
They didn't appreciate. They just weren't the right audience, probably
- [58:23]
Dr. Sharon Malone
didn't weren't expecting me to say. But I'm like, no, let's, let's call it for what it is.
- [58:27]
Host Kia
Yeah.
- [58:28]
Dr. Sharon Malone
You know, I found out that this is what. See, Wendy, this is what you can do when you have times. You can. I can go all down rabbit holes and start looking. I was like, whoa, look at that. I found out Dr. Wendy delivered six babies today.
- [58:46]
Host Kia
She knew this.
- [58:48]
Dr. Sharon Malone
See, I'm just like, I'm not, I'm.
- [58:53]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
That was kind of crazy, but that's okay. No, what did you find? Tell me. Thanks.
- [58:58]
Dr. Sharon Malone
I found that I lived on the street. I told you. I lived next door to not one, but two hospitals, which is strange. Who lives next door to the hospital? Right? And then I was trying to figure, I was like what was going on in my street. Cuz clearly it didn't used to be black people there, but now there are and it. So anyway, long story short, I'm trying to figure out the history of my street, street. And I found out that the first medical school in the state of Alabama was three blocks away from my house. It was a school when I was growing up. And it makes sense that they would locate the, the medical school there because there are two hospitals right down the street. Right. Again, these hospitals were built in the 1830s, so Confederate war, you know, history. But the guy who, who founded the medical school in Alabama was this guy Josiah Knott. Okay, Dr. Josiah Knott. He was. I mean not only was he this preeminent doctor in the state of Alabama, but nationally he went around the country lecturing on the inferiority of black people.
- [60:14]
Host Kia
I knew you don't say that. I thought she was going to say he was like a Klansman or something. I was just, just waited. Somebody named Josiah.
- [60:21]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Josiah, not he, he. Because this is what medicine did. Because you remember I told you, you get back to let's blame the patient. All right. So there was this whole notion about, well you can imagine what the healthcare disparities were like for people, you know, in slavery and just after Reconstruction. And he argued that black people were intellectually inferior. And it wasn't just because that's his idea. He had science. He. These. The phrenology where you were measuring skulls and said African people less brain, less brain capacity. Which was why they were okay. They can't read because they haven't been taught to read. Right. You know what I mean? Blame them. It must be your skull, your ability to. To learn. This was the person these people like J. Marion Sims, Josiah N. Not. There's another guy. Oh and even William Osler, who is the man usler who is considered the father of modern medicine. Big time racist misogynist, didn't want women in medical school. I mean these were the people that created the system that we operate in today, you know. So you kind of say, huh. This is why I said as we get to artificial intelligence, you need to understand that. That. So you know what to correct. You know, I, I just, you know, it just say I'm say I'm going out rabbit hole. But, but this is where. When you know that and most doctors don't know that. I didn't know that. I've been practicing, you know, I've been a doctor for 40 years. I didn't know. I just knew like oh yeah, you know, J Mar Sims Instruments named after him, you know, the father of gynecology.
- [62:09]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
Yeah, it's. He's. He was an awful, awful human. And I, I have been down there right before hole too. I want to just, just add one little tidbit. So my daughter, my youngest is 10. When she was maybe 4, she had to have a hernia repair at my hospital, really good hospital in Chicago. And she's getting her IV placed and the nurse is like oh, because you know, her skin is a little thicker because of her melanin because she's, you know, she's a little brown, more brown skin.
- [62:38]
Host Jade
And.
- [62:38]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
And here I am, a whole doctor. I had been the doctor probably a good 12, 15 years at that point. I had to look it up and send a message to my dermis like, is this true? And they were like, hell no, it ain't true.
- [62:50]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Exactly.
- [62:51]
Host Jade
Dr. Wendy, Dr. Wendy. You know, I'm a chef. And that did not sound right to me at all.
- [62:58]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
I was like, thicker. I was like, what did you just say? Her skin is thicker because it's brown? No, bitch, I had to. Oh, wait, I shouldn't say that.
- [63:08]
Dr. Sharon Malone
I literally.
- [63:09]
Host Jade
Yes, you should. No, actually, it'll take you there though. It'll take you there.
- [63:16]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
I had to literally message not only the patient care people, but I escalated it because I said, what you not gonna do is in 2020, you know, 2020 or whatever year this was, still have people who are know, still believing these pervasively racist beliefs about our bodies.
- [63:39]
Host Jade
Harmful tropes. Yeah.
- [63:40]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
And I say that to say because sometimes even in this conversation, I don't know who's listening, but there may be a little bit of a futility that comes along this conversation, like, oh my God, where are we headed? Who am I going to even see who can care for me if people are out here believing things have been taught by racist. I mean, gynecology was founded on, you know, the, the inappropriate and just awful experimentation on, you know, Betsy Anarcha. You know what I mean? Like, we, we know this, right? But nonetheless, we still need it. You know, we live within the beast and we still need it. And so that does require us to not only call out situations when they are inappropriate or, you know, and to know, to learn ourselves, but it also, I think, is. Is important for us to try our best to exist within it as, as. As co. Cohabitants. I don't know if that's the word I'm trying to use.
- [64:32]
Dr. Sharon Malone
They're sh.
- [64:33]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
To help me, but basically, I feel like we, we can't be antagonists in the, in the beast either. Right. There has to be a little bit of us trying to have a symbiotic relationship with healthcare as opposed to an antagonistic relationship with healthcare, otherwise we then again suffer. And so whether that means that there's opportunities for us to, to ask our providers questions and maybe expect the best, unless they tell us that they're. You know what I mean? Like, we gotta know. And with what my engine said, when they show you who they are, believe them. Absolutely. But we can't go into it being like, so what you gonna do for me? Like, I, I, I do not want my, my sisters to, to in, into relationships, any relationship like that. I mean, think about even friendships or relationships.
- [65:19]
Host Kia
Yeah.
- [65:19]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
You don't come into it, you know, ready to fight. You can't come into your healthcare professionals, you know, office ready to fight either, because it's not ever going to result in a positive outcome, in my humble opinion. Right. But I think this is important as well in order to be able to navigate this space. Yeah, I'm not going off on tangent too, but I just, I just feel like it is important for us to not only understand that history, but be able to still exist within it, you know, in order to get our best outcomes. That could also mean sometimes participating in, and I'm going say, say it like studies and you know, clinical, clinical trials because to the point they said that we are not included. If we can be included.
- [65:57]
Host Kia
Absolutely.
- [65:57]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
We may help the next person with melanin to be included. So I know there's history there, Tuskegee, all that. Nobody wants to be the quote, unquote, guinea pig, but, but sometimes we need to be a part of the solutions in order to help ourselves and our communities as well.
- [66:12]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Yeah, we absolutely do. But you know what's interesting, I was talking to Linda Goler Blunt, who was, who was the previous head of the Black Women's Health Initiative, and she said, you know, as they go around and they're looking about participation for black people in studies, and honestly, a lot of people never heard of J. Marion Sims. They never heard of the Tuskegee Experiment. So it's not that what they bring to it is their personal experience with doctors and how they felt, seen or heard in that. But she said the number one reason why more black people do not participate in studies and we are well below our representation in the, in the pop. General population for studies, is because we're not asked. Okay, so you're going to do a trial. If you want to be intentional about including African Americans in your study, then you have to recruit in a way that makes them feel like this is, some people would do it, you know, if you felt like you were doing something that was useful and somebody might learn something. But, but you can't have a study that requires for me to, you know, go to the University of Chicago, you know, you know, once a week or whatever, and you've got, you know, you've got kids, you got, you know, you don't bring it to the community, make it easy for People, you know. So yes, I think absolutely we need to have more, you know, specific outcomes and you know, we need to have that data disaggregated by race and by. And by gender. But not because we're different, but because our circumstances are different. And you need to figure out what things in that environment need to be changed. You know, it's awesome too.
- [68:02]
Host Kia
So again, I think the point you're. Both of your points are very well taken. I'm thinking about what Dr. Wendy said about operating within this problematic system system and not operating out of awareness so that you can use your agency and not just like passively experience, but proactively be intentional about your care. And so that's why these spaces are important. I think the point of participating in research is important. I think there's also having spaces where we can also be consumers of research and have, have like, you know, things explained to us is also like those spaces feel safe. Yeah, well, and, and I think that's a great word because I think there's a lot of vulnerability in acknowledging what you don't know. But like what are the ways that we're creating the conditions that make people feel like they can engage in these sort of exercises to raise that awareness.
- [69:06]
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- [69:25]
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- [69:59]
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- [70:06]
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- [70:33]
Pharmaceutical Announcer
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- [70:34]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Liberty.
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Pharmaceutical Announcer
Liberty.
- [70:40]
Host Kia
We talked a little bit about perimenopause, another trend that we're seeing also connected to the conversation around teen pregnancy and how that pendulum has seemingly swung. So I want to talk a little bit about ivf, because I think a lot of conversation, particularly amongst women or just individuals within our audience and the age demographics of our audience, you know, are thinking about this. And, you know, the birth rate for women over 40 is now higher than teen mom birth rates nationally and across several states. And so there's this argument that IVF is creating a new generation of older moms and even more particularly single moms, moms in their 40s. And so just, just curious if even within the context of our conversation around these trends and systems and thinking about smaller populations or sub populations, or I just thinking about, like when I go to the doctor in my great big age of 43.
- [71:42]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Shut up.
- [71:43]
Host Kia
You know, the word geriatric has been associated with me and that has been a bit startling. It's been a little startling.
- [71:50]
Host Jade
I like it. I like it.
- [71:52]
Host Kia
I want to talk a little bit about, like, you know, this, this. It feels like a wave. But, you know, I've got friends and contemporaries, people within my age group, thinking very intentionally about freezing their eggs and exploring their options as it relates to ivf and so wondering if either of you might talk about that. And as you've experienced it within your work, within your practice, even within your content creation, is this something that's coming up? You guys also agree that this is a trend? And how are we, like, you know, in the same way that we're trying to have these conversations intentionally and empower people to be proactive about their care. What would you say to women who. Or people who might be in this space?
- [72:39]
Dr. Sharon Malone
You know what? And see, and I have, I literally have this chat, I have this in my one book because I talk about it because, like, this whole thing with egg freezing and what do you do and whatever. So the. Across this country, the age at first birth is as high as it's ever been. You know, it is now like 28, 29. And people used to have babies, you know, even when, you know, forget the teen pregnancies, people need to get pregnant. 21, 22, they could be married and be pregnant. Right.
- [73:08]
Host Jade
So my mother.
- [73:09]
Dr. Sharon Malone
It's higher because women are doing more. You know, we are. You know, your doctors and lawyers in college, business people. And you're doing stuff. And nobody wants to be pregnant really, when they're 21 years old. You still hanging out and having fun
- [73:23]
Host Kia
outside in the streets. I know that's right. Period.
- [73:27]
Host Jade
Justifiably so.
- [73:31]
Dr. Sharon Malone
That's just the changing demographic. That's what happens when women get to choose. All right, but here is also the reality is that we cannot outrun our biology. You're your, you're going to. Your fertility is different in your 30s than it is in your 20s. And it's definitely different in your 40s than it was in your 30s. So even though we're seeing these numbers and we're seeing people like Janet Jackson and Halle Berry getting pregnant when they're 48 years old, it's like, that ain't got nothing to do with you, okay. Because it's a lot of intervention. It's a lot of stuff. You know, it's so it's a lot of behind the scenes work that I don't know personally, but I can just say from, you know, a lot went into that. So now we, here we are facing the economic consequences of this because you're getting pregnant if you want to freeze your eggs. If you say, well, oh, yeah, I'll just freeze my eggs, okay, well, that's easier said than done. That's anywhere from 15 to $20,000 correct cycle of egg freezing. And the reality is, is that because we haven't been doing egg freezing for that long, it's been maybe 15 years that that's even been possible. Most of the eggs that are frozen, no one has come back for. So here's, here's what I tell people. I said if you, you would get the best yield possible in your 20s. But if you freeze your eggs in your 20s, you're. You're likely to get, you know, to meet somebody, do whatever, have a baby in your 30s, you won't go back for those frozen EG. You have. Most people will get pregnant. So you have a lot of money that you've expended and if the older you are, then it may not even be one cycle of egg freezing. You got maybe. Or even people who've done ivf, they usually have done multiple cycles, a lot of money. So do you see how it becomes an issue? Because now you're going to separate the haves and have nots who can afford that kind of treatment, who can't. Right. So that's the reality. I think that what, what I always used to say, and this is not to, it's not to pressure anybody. I have daughters, you know, I have daughters who are 30 and 32 years old. And I just say to them, I'm like, look, you know, have a baby when you want to have a baby, but I don't want you to think you have forever because that's not realistic. That's not realistic. And so, you know, when you're thinking about these things and I want people to, to get out of their mind, I'll just freeze my eggs or I'll just do ivf. Know what that really means? And it's a huge commitment and it's the possibility of pregnancy. It's not, again, it's not guaranteed.
- [76:21]
Host Kia
Yeah.
- [76:22]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Even with all of that. So, you know, I said do what you, you know, do what you can afford. A lot of, you know, tech companies now are offering egg freezing as a benefit. But again, again, look at who has those jobs, you know, that has that as a benefit and it's not a lot of us. So the best advice I can give a young woman is have a baby when you're ready to have a baby, financially, emotionally, you have a partner or someone, even if you're not partnered. If you just decide, this is a point in my life, that's when the good time is to do it. But just not understand the longer you wait. Yeah. You are hitting up on some, some real possibilities that, that doors that may be closed to you later in life.
- [77:09]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
I agree. I, I won't add much to that because I support that synopsis fully. I will say this, and I'm a believer and I know there are those who are out there. I, I think pray on everything. And the reason I say pray on everything is because my babies came when I did not plan to come and I was a whole other time. So that's kind of. Know, I don't, I don't know, I don't know how that happened. But here we are, you know what I'm saying? And, but that wasn't my timing. But I'm grateful. I'm grateful because if it was my timing. I might be starting right now, and I'm grateful that mine are here, you know, And I think that he knows and everybody's path is in the same path. And I also feel like now I haven't written this book, but it's in my. It's in my spirit. So one day I'm g. Come back to this. I've written some of it, but one day it'll actually be a real book. The should be.
- [78:02]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Should.
- [78:03]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
Should be doesn't exist.
- [78:04]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Okay.
- [78:05]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
I should be. I should be a mother. I should be this. I should be that. That doesn't exist.
- [78:10]
Host Jade
Well, some of you shouldn't be.
- [78:11]
Host Kia
Hello.
- [78:12]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
Maybe you should be who you are. You know what I mean? Like, maybe the. The days of old where everybody had. And. And in order to feel like a woman, in order to be a. A successful person, you had to be married with. With kids. It's a whole lot of people married with kids that are in the pits, you know, the armpit, as my dad used to say. Like, that. You know, that doesn't make us. Right. Like this should be. Don't make us. So I. I tell my patients, hey, I support you. I want you to, like you said, do it when you can. Maybe if you could. If you could do it, but it don't seem exactly the right time. Maybe do it anyway, you know, go ahead and handle business because you're gonna make it work, and it's gonna work, you know, and so that. But also, if it's not for you, maybe that's not for you. Maybe that isn't your. And that's okay. These people in my era again, you know, and that's this early and mid-40s that feel some kind of way that it didn't happen for them, but maybe that wasn't what was supposed to happen for them, and that's supposed to. You know, I don't know how y' all feel about that, but I just feel, like, totally weigh ourselves down with the supposed.
- [79:20]
Host Kia
A lot of social pressure. And I think just conventionally, it's not intended, but, like, programming, like, I think, you know, like, you, Dr. Wendy, I grew up in church, and you sort of hear like, there's. There's all the women com. All the conversation about a woman's life and livelihood was connected to wife and mother. Like, there was no. There was no real acknowledgement of a woman. Woman's humanity outside of those roles. And so even if you are not consciously pursuing that as, like, something that you want to do, there is a part of your mind that thinks it will just happen by virtue of it happens for everyone else. And so if it doesn't happen within a certain time frame, it's very easy to start to think, is something wrong with me? Did I do something wrong? But I really appreciate, appreciate you because I think that was a personal sort of revelation for me too. Like, it's like just, you know, I had to really contend with like, is this something that I wanted? And when I owned and accepted that it was not like allowing myself to have that was also very much like. And that's okay. Like, I don't hate children. I love children. I love my friend's children. I love the babies. But it is not like, you know, it was, it is not something that I feel personally called to in this time. And there are other ways in which I'm able to care for and I don't want to say mother, but like be a support. Yes to, to children and young people
- [81:01]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
and fulfill a part of yourself, you know.
- [81:04]
Host Kia
For sure. For sure. So I, I appreciate you, you, you saying that because I think there is this sort of. I, I guess a word that keeps coming back is like pressure. But there's this expectation. There's a, like, there is a cultural. Yeah like that.
- [81:23]
Dr. Sharon Malone
There's an expect.
- [81:24]
Host Kia
Like that you're just going to like, you know, it's, it's taken as a for granted. Like it was. It's going to happen for you. And if it doesn't like that, that's okay too.
- [81:33]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
The men don't have that. The men, like, I mean, I guess they do, but they don't have it in the same timeline.
- [81:39]
Dr. Sharon Malone
They don't have anything right.
- [81:41]
Host Kia
And they don't feel. And there's no sort of like nothing. No, no shame associated with it like at all. And I also love that you talked about, you know, sometimes things happen when they do and without your control or input at all. I'm thinking about friend of mine, close friend to the show. Even my friend DEI went and thought she was having me menopause because she and went to the doctor and thought and found out she was pregnant. She was like, yeah, girl, I just coming in here to check on these hormones mind. I have these symptoms. I must be perimenopausal or something. And they was like, no, girl you are expecting. So you know, you know things, you know, I understand what, what we're saying around, you know, nature is nature and fertility. The science is there. We know what that means. But like it doesn't have to be the Same way for all of us. Like life happens as it happens and you know, however it happens for you is how it's going to happen for you.
- [82:42]
Dr. Sharon Malone
And you know what, and here's the other thing that, you know, if you really want to be a mother, there are a lot of different paths to motherhood.
- [82:50]
Host Kia
For sure.
- [82:52]
Dr. Sharon Malone
When you start talking about things like adoption, let me say there is zero weight for a black baby. Okay? You can foster a black child, you can go get baby, you. All of these things that are available to you should you choose to correct. And you know, and I have, I'm that first generation of women that were, you know, what kind of professional. I'm, I'm 67. So, you know, I came of age in the, you know, in the late 70s and 80s and you know, everybody's going to college and graduate school and law school and that kind of thing. And you know, of my group of very close friends, I have one, first off, I have more children than anybody and I'm the one that looks like really, I didn't, really wasn't trying to have any. But you know, With all the children,
- [83:49]
Host Jade
you know, how did I end up with any child? I don't know.
- [83:54]
Dr. Sharon Malone
You know, you, you find the person, the circumstances are there and you do what you do. I have a girlfriend. I have a girlfriend who, who just turned 39 years. When she turned 39 years old and she was, didn't have a partner. She did artificial insemination, has a son, you know, 30 year old son. I have another friend of mine who, you know, again, things just didn't work out. She, you know, adopted a child. So she has a, you know, her, her daughter now is, you know, in her, you know, probably 28 years old. We were that first wave of women that were doing it all. And then my other girlfriend, same thing, got my pregnant at 42. Thought she was never, it would never happen for her. She got pregnant. So between all of my friends, you know, they have, each of them have like 1, 1, 1 and I, you know, and I've got 3. But the point is, is that everybody took a different path.
- [84:48]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
Yeah.
- [84:49]
Dr. Sharon Malone
To motherhood.
- [84:50]
Host Kia
Yeah.
- [84:51]
Dr. Sharon Malone
And guess what, we're all, we all have the children that we're supposed to have and we wanted to have. That's it. So, you know, like, like I said, a lot of different paths. Don't think, you know, you, that you have to birth a child to be a mother. You don't.
- [85:04]
Host Kia
Absolutely.
- [85:05]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
If I could double down on one quick thought because I know we probably got Other things talk about. But I feel like as black women, we find ourselves assuming at least maybe me, just me. I speak for myself, assuming responsibility for so many things, whether it's work, whether it's other things in life. And so we think we have to come last, you know, like, oh, I can't do this right now because I have this thing. I can't do this right now because this other thing is happening. And it's like, no. Know that things are gonna thing all around you. You know what I mean? So. So if there's an experience that you desire to have as a black woman, take. Take charge of your. Of your priorities as well. Because, you know, the. The ownership that we take, I think sometimes we could take less of. One of my colleagues just had the flu last week, and I was like, girl, I'll come. I'll help out. I'll take over your call. Take off tomorrow. She's like, no, but there are people to be saying, girl, take off tomorrow and take off the next day. I'll be fine by the next time. Girl, take it off. So she did what I told her, took the day off. The next day. She had the whole flu works the next day. I talked to her today. I said, so did you work last week? I know she did because I was talking. She's like, I should have did what you said. It took the time off, but people were expecting me. People kind of. They would have wa. They would have worked, worked it out without you. You need to take care of your physical and mental health self. It's true. That's the only thing I want to just impart on the people. I don't know who this is for, because we do that. Women do that, but I think black women especially do that.
- [86:35]
Host Jade
We do. I had the neurovirus last week. I was a demon. I told Kia. I mean, it was crazy. Okay? I haven't been that ticket forever. And I was supposed to fly. I do a lot of. I teach at the. At cooking classes at the juvenile detention center. Dr. Sharon in Ohio. So I'll fly there sometimes with an organization. And I miss my boys. I miss. I missed my kids. And I could not. I was telling the. The girl who books the travel. I was like, kiana, okay, I know I'm supposed to come Tuesday night. Let me just like. Like, I'll be done throwing up by Wednesday afternoon. I'll come do this the last classes of the week. She said, you won't be going anywhere. So you will be in that bed for the. For the rest of the week and, and you need to do. And we do. We have a tendency to push and I can imagine, you know, as we're going to transition soon in a second more into the perimenopause talk and menopause talk as we are under. Unable to sometimes control the exhaustion that comes along with that. We have to manage the things that we can control, even if it's something that we really want to do. But we do have a tendency to do that. I don't. Innately. Innately. I know we have to wrap up soon, but we gotta ask a couple. We gotta talk about this. The second puberty in life. The. Because that's what it feels like. My daughter is 12. She's about to be 13. She just, you know, she's, she's going through all her changes and I'm like, oh, me too.
- [88:09]
Pharmaceutical Announcer
Same.
- [88:09]
Host Jade
Same.
- [88:15]
Pharmaceutical Announcer
Eczema is unpredictable. But you can flare less with epglis, a once monthly treatment for moderate to severe eczema. After an initial four month or longer dosing phase. About four in ten people taking Epglis, it just achieved itch relief and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks. And most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing.
- [88:34]
MGLIS Lebricizumab LBKZ a 250mg per 2ml injection is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema, also called atopic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies. EBGLIS can be used with or without without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to ebglis. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with EBGLIS before starting ebglis. Tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection.
- [89:08]
Ask your doctor about eglis and visit eglis.lilly.com or call 1-800-lilyrx or 1-800-545-5979.
- [89:15]
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- [89:48]
Host Jade
We want to talk a little bit. We have a couple of questions from the listeners before we close out, a couple of questions from ourselves. I'll start off really quickly and then Kia, if you want to pull up our questions from our listeners just in the manner of where we are right now and maybe there's not enough research, but I'd love to hear from both of you. Are you all seeing any overlapping issues between perimenopause, menopause and the, the uptick in the GLP ones?
- [90:18]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Tell me what do you mean by that? Because so the girls are on.
- [90:22]
Host Jade
Ok. I mean, just as you know, right, it, we, we have seen a boom of it right in the last couple of years, which means it's same as kind of like Covid. We are not going to have all of the effects until later on down the line of what they do to people. But they are starting to, I'm starting to hear more about people realizing that they lose muscle density and it's, it's affecting them in ways like that. So I'm just wondering, and you all's medical world, if you are hearing any stories or getting any, any information around how maybe one might be impacting the other.
- [91:04]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Yes. You know, I have to tell you, I was very, you know, in the beginning I was very sort of hesitant about the GOP ones because I didn't really, you know, I wasn't really familiar with them. Didn't you have any patients that I knew of who was, who were on them? And you know, I'm sort of come around to, to understanding a little bit more that they're not new. They may be new to me, but they've been around for far longer than I was aware. So here's the thing that as you start to look at GLP1s and you're looking at how many chronic illnesses are associated with obesity. So when I say when I'm talking about GLP1s, I'm talking about people that have that you're not just overweight, oh, I'd like to wear a size 8 and I'm a 12. I'm not talking about these people. I'm talking about people that have chronic illnesses. You're hypertensive, you're diabetic, you've got joint pain, all of these things. Those things are better. And you do have better outcomes with people who are on GOP1s, because I believe women, I believe I've talked to women enough time over the years and they said, I am trying, you know, I have. I'm exercising, I'm going to the gym. There really is something that happens to you at perimenopause, and as you age that makes it harder and harder and harder to lose weight. So I get it. I believe you. So I'm. I'm for the use of, of GLP1s, not just. Not for vanity. You can do it if you want to, but the reality is, but when it comes to really impacting health, you really, you really are having some benefit. That being said, if you're on a GLP1, you have got to be super, super intentional about what you eat, because you can eat small amounts of trash, you know, and still lose weight. And you are going to lose muscle, you are going to not get enough, you know, protein, you're not going to get enough calcium in your diet. So, yes, you're going to end up. Just because skinny doesn't mean you're healthy.
- [93:16]
Host Kia
All right?
- [93:17]
Dr. Sharon Malone
So that's why I said you can't just take it on its own. But the one thing I will tell you when you get into that perimenopause and menopausal space, what we do know is that for women who are gaining weight and have other issues, women who are on hormone replacement therapy and use GLP1s lose more weight and maintain it better than women who use either alone. So the effect is synergistic. So, you know, if you're on and. And that's the message I want to leave you with before we go is that black women underuse hormone replacement therapy. It is. Less than 1% of black women who are eligible to use hormone replacement therapy use only about 6, 5, 6% of women are on it. Generally, black women who suffer the longest have symptoms that are more severe, severe, use hormone therapy the least because of the misinformation out there, and we discourage each other. Okay, girl, why you taking that? You know, I'm taking. You got some herbs and some, you know, supplements to take. Let me say this. The most effective treatment for the symptoms of menopause, hot flashes, mood swings, night sweats, brain fog, all of that. You know, even in menopause, even when you don't gain weight, you redistribute your body weight so it goes more to your metal. My lord, is hormone dependent. So I say this. There's anything I would say if you are suffering, if you are not sleeping, you know, guess what? That increases your risk for hypertension. It increases your risk for type 2 diabetes. All of these things that will rack
- [95:06]
Host Jade
up no sleep increases hypertension. Risk for hypertension.
- [95:09]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Absolutely, absolutely.
- [95:11]
Host Kia
You increases everything. I did not know that.
- [95:14]
Host Jade
I got to go to bed. I got to go to bed.
- [95:17]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
Adding their sleep apnea for those with, you know, over sleep structure. So I'm with you. I definitely agree that it is. The benefits often do outweigh the risks when monitored when prescribed by somebody who knows what they're doing. I don't want you getting back alley, you know.
- [95:33]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Yeah.
- [95:34]
Host Jade
Y gray basement situation.
- [95:38]
Host Kia
Buy it on TikTok, don't buy it on wellness center.
- [95:41]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
And then. And you have to not only get in the protein, but you have to exercise. My husband is actually GI and obesity management specialist. And I. I saw one of those posts like, you know how much muscle mass you lose? I'm like, is this true? He's like, absolutely. That's why you gotta exercise and get your protein in. And I'm like, okay. That means you gotta get it from somebody who's gonna make sure that you are educated about that and do it right. You can't just. Nothing's a quick fix. It has to be adjunctive to the lifestyle.
- [96:03]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Right. And you know what? But then we get back to square one, which is where we started. You know, you get treatments and you have these medications for. And who needs it more than black women? No one. Right. But then you don't have access because you can't find a doctor who will prescribe for you. And that's why. That's really why when. When I left my private practice and I'm now with Alloy Health and it is a digital health company because what do you do if you want it and you need it and you cannot find someone to prescribe for you or you're. You'll go see a doctor and they'll say. And your doctor will tell you, don't take it. You know, they're. They disqualify you for things that are not disqualifiers. Being overweight is not a reason why you can't use hormone therapy. You know, a family history of breast cancer is not a reason to not take hormone therapy. Only like four reasons why, who should not have. If you personally have breast cancer, not a family history. It's very clear about it. But we take ourselves out of the gate game because we think we can't or it's not for us. Or someone has told you things like it causes breast cancer. It doesn't.
- [97:16]
Host Kia
I think that's a good sort of lead up to the question we got from one of our audience members or one of our community members. As a woman entering her 40s, what are things we should be monitoring when it comes to hormones? Is are there specific tests that we should be getting or asking for or talking to our doctors about as specific. Specific to. Because I don't know, and I'm being honest, I have told my, my doctor about my symptoms, but I don't know that she's had a conversation with me about like my hormone levels or like testing for them. She just sort of said, well, yeah, that's normal for your age. And it was like, you know, green and bear it daughter. So that's like,
- [98:03]
Host Jade
yes.
- [98:04]
Host Kia
Okay, so talk to us about what we should be asked specific to our hormones, hormone testing, etc.
- [98:12]
Dr. Sharon Malone
So let me just tell you the difference between perimenopause and menopause. Perimenopause is just the menopause transition. So that happens for most women maybe in their mid to late. It starts happening in mid to late 30s to mid to late 40s, but it takes years to complete. So it's now you're going to be in perimenopause. The average black women, the average amount of time that they're in perimenopause menopause is 10 years. Lord Jesus, it's four to seven for white women. It's 10 years for black women.
- [98:39]
Host Kia
So that means we can't.
- [98:40]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
You can't win.
- [98:41]
Host Kia
Lord have mercy.
- [98:42]
Dr. Sharon Malone
No, you can't win. You can't win. Let me just say what's up, guys? But what I want to say about that is that a lot of the symptoms that you associate, the only symptom that people tend to know is hot flashes. Okay?
- [98:56]
Host Kia
It's so much more.
- [98:57]
Dr. Sharon Malone
It's, it's a lot, a lot of symptoms. You know, not feeling like yourself, vaginal dryness, changes in mood, depression, anxiety, you know, all of these things sort of come in. So here's the, here's the problem. In perimenopause, your hormones are not gone. They're erratic. Yeah, they're too high one day, too low the next. They're this, they're that. That's why you get irregular bleeding sometime. And the symptoms are actually worse in perimenopause than they are you actually in menopause. So that's why hormone testing is not useful, because. Okay, it's normal today. I don't know what it's going to be tomorrow. So you can't treat the numbers, you treat the symptoms. So when to get treatment depends upon when you are bothered by the symptoms that you're having. And I see if they're getting in the way with how you feel, how you're functioning in the workplace, in your personal life, or just how you feel. Yes, that's the time to intervene. Not because you're waiting for a number or you're waiting for a number of months at not having a period. None of that. The only time that I think that hormone levels are helpful sometimes is because you remember a lot of black women have fibroids, A lot of Black women have IUDs. A lot of there may be. Or you've had a history of urectomy, so you don't have a uterus, so you can't use the bleeding metric. No periods for a year because, oh, yeah, I have iud. I've had a period in five years. So if I'm trying to see where you are sometimes, are you done? I can, I will sometimes get a hormone level for that. But just for routine management, you treat until the symptoms go away. And that's where, again, it's helpful to have, have someone who knows how to titrate, how to know, you know, where to start, when do we stop, that kind of thing. And that's just experience. That's just the experience of your doctor and having, you know, knowing how to do it.
- [101:04]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
And I don't think all the treatments are the same either, in the sense that, yes, hormones can be supportive, and I'm a huge fan of hrt, but I also feel like, like in my experience, as I'm starting to, to dibble and dabble with my perimenopausal people, some of them, I'll even based on their symptoms, not even just based on the labs. Based on the symptoms, I'll give them a little bit of sprinkle of, you know, estrogen, probably progestin, and they feel better. And others. I give them a sprinkle and they feel worse. And it's like, okay, that didn't work for you. Now let's try to treat this particular symptom this way without that, or exercise or change the diet and see if some of those things will work too. So I, I just, I throw that in there because I think sometimes people come to me, they're like, give me hormones. And I'm like, hold on, let's see what we can look at big picture. We can try this, let's check in in a month or to, you know, but there's not always a one size fits all approach.
- [101:51]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Right, right. That's why they come in different doses and different, you know, different ways you get them. You know, it's patches, it's pills and sprays, all kinds of, you know, different ways that it works for different people differently. But it requires that someone really have the experience. If they know all they know how to do is one thing, then that's
- [102:10]
Host Jade
a problem that makes sense because it's the same thing for like birth control. Right. And for us as humans in general. Nothing works for everybody. So that, that also makes sense for this. I, I, I know we are, we have to wrap up here. I'm just so grateful to the both of you for coming and sitting with us. This needs to be like a five hour conversation, honestly, because there's so much to discuss. And I think the last thing I would just ask before we head out is if there is one thing for you all to share with me, our audience, if there's just one, if there's something we have not asked. And there's one thing you want to share with an audience of black women predominantly who are entering perimenopause, because I think that's primarily where we're at. They're anticipating entering it soon or they're, they're getting started. Like they're, they're revving up the engine and they've, and they've entered. What would you leave them with?
- [103:05]
Dr. Sharon Malone
You know, my advice is this. Don't suffer. There is, there is no suffering Olympics. You're not going to get a medal at the end because you suffered for 10 years and somebody else only suffered for two. Just don't. Yeah, you know, I think you have to have a different expectation for this phase of life. And I think the expectation should be I should feel good and I should feel whole. Yeah, I should myself. And however we need to get to that, that's what you should really ask for and that should be your goal. Because, you know, we want to get you to the other end of it. Not, you know, having been sleepless for a decade. That's, that serves nobody's purpose. So you know what? Menopause, I always say this menopause is inevitable. It will come for us all. Suffering is the optional part. So don't do it.
- [103:55]
Host Jade
That's a word, especially in this world.
- [103:58]
Host Kia
Who the suffering.
- [103:59]
Host Jade
Suffering this, it's already on fire. Like my body doesn't need to be as well.
- [104:05]
Host Kia
Doctor.
- [104:06]
Host Jade
Dr. Wendy, what would you like to leave the audience with?
- [104:09]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
I would say it's not a cliff we're falling off of. It is actually getting into our prime. I had a patient today, 34, so I'm about to be 35. I was like, girl, please, you all right? I also saw a post the other day that was like, women's peak creativity. Most entrepreneurs start things in their mid-40s. You know, there's so many things that we do that take our minds and our bodies and our just life to another level, even as we're entering in this space, which tells me it's not the end. Like, we're starting. Like this is going to be more. More of our life than even the reproductive years. It's the beginning for some of us.
- [104:47]
Host Kia
Yeah.
- [104:47]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
And so I think treating it as such makes it maybe less daunting, less fearful. Yes. We should be able to be exist comfortably in our own bodies. We shouldn't be afraid of this, this. This transition into this era of our lives. If anything, we should kind of like, you know what I say? Lean in. Like, let's go. You know what I mean?
- [105:06]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Yeah. I mean, and we have different role models now. We have better role models for what post that. That's the lovely thing is that women are owning up to it and saying, yeah, I'm menopausal. You know, you can look at all these women out there doing all these boss things. I, you know, I started all this. I'd left my job at 62 and I had. I'm in another trajectory altogether. So that's what we're trying to model the behavior for young women to say, no, girl, you are not done. We are just getting started.
- [105:35]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
Yes.
- [105:36]
Host Jade
Yeah, that's what I call it. Second puberty.
- [105:38]
Host Kia
Real quick. I want to.
- [105:40]
Host Jade
We're just starting.
- [105:41]
Host Kia
Thank you, guys. I want to echo Jade and just sort of thanks. This is always a conversation that I'm grateful to have, especially to. To. To benefit from your expertise. Thank you for joining us. And I want to also give Dr. Wendy give us an update about every. The everybody brand. Going to ask Dr. Sharon to tell us a little bit about the Second Opinion podcast. But yeah, give us, give us an update. The last time you were on, you were telling us about the boxers and the bombs and all the things. And I use mine.
- [106:12]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
Boxer bombs are available. Body oil, deodorizing spray are in the mail as we speak as our period panties. And I talked to my chemist yesterday. You're gonna get a body wash and A lotion going because this. Because she is a genius black woman. She's a genius. And I'm like, what we gonna do is just let all the skin live and thrive under everybody brand. So just be. Just stay tuned for all the beautiful things happening, all the moisture coming your way.
- [106:43]
Host Kia
Yes.
- [106:43]
Host Jade
Proper moisture, too. Yeah. I've used so many of. I've looked at my vagina different ways. It's incredible.
- [106:50]
Host Kia
It's so useful.
- [106:53]
Host Jade
Oh, man. Man, I've been. I've been and twisted like a pretzel baby,
- [107:00]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
So.
- [107:02]
Host Jade
And Dr. Sharon, same for you?
- [107:03]
Host Kia
Yes, the Second Opinion podcast is coming. Tell us all about that.
- [107:08]
Dr. Sharon Malone
You know, the second. We just. We just wrapped the. The season with the Second Opinion, so there is a lot of stuff you. Any of you can watch at any place you get your podcast. But I also want to do my. My big passion is making sure that women get the help. That. And that's why, like I said, for any of you, if you have a doctor who knows what they're doing, you need to do that. But if you don't, don't let that. Don't let people discourage you and don't say, well, I'm going to go untreated because I can't find a doctor. At Alloy Health, which is where I'm the chief medical advisor, we have doctors who in a digital space will treat perimenopause, menopause, and most things. And we are there in all 50 states in the District of Columbia. So there's no reason why anybody cannot have access. So that's how we're going to bridge this. This divide and make sure that everybody gets equal access.
- [108:05]
Host Kia
Amazing.
- [108:06]
Dr. Sharon Malone
And read Wrong Woman Talk. All the other stuff, it's all in grown woman talk.
- [108:10]
Host Kia
Yeah.
- [108:11]
Host Jade
Yes. Make sure. Oh, we're having a book club, ladies and gentlemen. Okay. I just want you all to know, like, we're having a. We're having a book club very soon. We have lots to read in Dr. Sharon Malone's book. I got a lot of. I might have to hit up the Aloy women as well. I gotta. I gotta get all my stuff together. So thank you all so much for coming and sitting with us at the kitchen table. I wish I could hold you hostage, but it's. That's not kind. So I. We will have all of the links in the description box for the audience to check out. Everything that both of you have going on, you all gotta get the book, get the. Get the bomb, get the mirror.
- [108:49]
Host Kia
Trust me.
- [108:52]
Host Jade
And make sure you all definitely click on the link in that description box. Thank you again, ladies. Thank you so, so much. And we'll see you all for the next segment.
- [109:01]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Thank you.
- [109:02]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
Thank you so much. Hi.
- [109:04]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Country Petty.
- [109:05]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
All the same to me playing James Spaghetti.
- [109:07]
Host Kia
Oh my goodness. Was that not captivating and compelling conversation?
- [109:14]
Host Jade
I mean, you know, know, it's just, it's such a scramble too. Right. It's like a Easter egg hunt on a time. On a short time when you have so much you want to discuss and, you know, a minimal amount of time. But I'm just so grateful for all that we were able to cover and for the. I'm also grateful.
- [109:36]
Host Kia
Yeah, very grateful. I'm just grateful to have like proximity and access and proximity to people who know what they're about. Talking. Talking about.
- [109:44]
Host Jade
Absolutely.
- [109:45]
Host Kia
And who are. Are patient and answer our questions in a way that really centers our care and prioritizes like us. Like, you know, it's not like, you know, I. I love the time that they took to. To listen. Thanks and shout out to all y' all for submitting your questions on Instagram and via email. We didn't get to everything, but that only means that we'll have to have. Have another conversation. Hopefully we can work on scheduling that soon. So. Yeah, a great. A great. A grat.
- [110:18]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Tim.
- [110:19]
Host Jade
Yeah, I'm very grateful. I'm grateful for. For this community. Right. And I'm grateful for the intention in this community and for the exposure to all manners of incredible professionals who are able to guide us when we're living in a world of such uncertainty. And, and so many spaces are unsafe or new in navigating. So they are unsafe because they're being abused. And so to know that we have this as a grounding space to have these conversations with people who can be like, now this is what I do and here's how I'm going to help you to navigate it. I'm just, I'm really grateful for that. But. Shout out to the. Shout out to Dr. Wendy's. Shout out to Dr. Sh.
- [111:01]
Host Kia
Sharing.
- [111:02]
Host Jade
Shout out to black women in stem and steam. Shout out to. Shout out to us all. But what's your petty feed this week?
- [111:11]
Host Kia
S. Very, very petty. Only because I'm just speaking, if I may, for the corporate girlies, those of us who are down here in the Outlook calendar and scheduled all day long. I want, I want to say this and forgive me if this is something. Something that I have raised before for your consideration. If I have raised it before, I'm raising it again because it. It is a persistent and pervasive problem. Okay, if the meeting starts at 4:30, don't start it at 4:27.
- [111:46]
Host Jade
No.
- [111:46]
Host Kia
Y' all love to go in the room early, and I often perceive that and receive that as you bully, bullying me to start the conversation sooner.
- [111:58]
Host Jade
No. I assume you didn't have nothing to do.
- [112:01]
Host Kia
Yeah, but if you. If I'm telling you that if I got five minutes between these minutes between these meetings, I'm taking all 300 of those seconds. You understand what I'm saying?
- [112:12]
Host Jade
Yeah.
- [112:13]
Host Kia
And I want. I want that to be very, very, very clear.
- [112:18]
Host Jade
Yeah. Yeah.
- [112:19]
Host Kia
Okay. And don't ask like it's like I have to. So my petty peep is for the girls who come into the Outlook, come down to the meeting early with your icebreakers and your starters. Like, girl, okay, not today. Leave us alone. Just get out of my face with that foolishness, please. Okay?
- [112:46]
Host Jade
Leave me alone. Please leave me alone. Leave me alone.
- [112:49]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Exactly.
- [112:49]
Host Kia
Please leave me in that al. In that altar.
- [112:52]
Host Jade
Please.
- [112:53]
Host Kia
So that's it. That's my petty peeve right there.
- [112:57]
Host Jade
No, that's. That's factual.
- [112:58]
Host Kia
Shut up.
- [112:58]
Host Jade
Talking to me. That's actual and factual.
- [113:01]
Host Kia
And factual.
- [113:03]
Host Jade
Also, what's actual and factual is I hate taxes.
- [113:07]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Oh.
- [113:08]
Host Kia
And you, the ghettos of adulting. Indeed.
- [113:11]
Host Jade
The fact that you all.
- [113:15]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Yeah.
- [113:16]
Host Jade
Are still going after people and the. In the wakes and the lights of everything going on all around us. You know what I'm saying? It's like, give us your money and yet y' all will not pay to people who deserve to be paid. You said TSA and those air traffic controllers. You're still trying to figure out how to fund these. These. Nope. Can't use that word. Not that one either.
- [113:48]
Host Kia
Jade.
- [113:49]
Host Jade
Well, yeah, I'll just keep going back to terrorists. You're fun. You're funding these terrorists, and yet you are demanding money from us. And we don't want none of this. And I'm over it. I'm tired.
- [114:01]
Host Kia
I'm tired.
- [114:02]
Host Jade
I'm pissed off. I'm irritated. We know what our taxes go toward. I don't support none of that. And I'm just wondering, like, you know, when it.
- [114:13]
Dr. Wendy Goodall McDonald
Oh, when it all. It all falls down, I just.
- [114:19]
Host Jade
When's it gonna come crashing down? I. Also, in light of last week, I wish the neurovirus. I don't know if I did it then, but if I didn't, I do it now, I'd do it again. I wish the neurovirus on all of them, people who deserve it. And you all know which people, and all of them are over a particular age in which it is dangerous to obtain.
- [114:41]
Host Kia
Yes.
- [114:42]
Host Jade
So gone are the days where I ever say, I don't wish this on my worst enemy. No, I wish this. I don't wish this on anyone I love, but I wish it on all who deserve. And to all a good night Mary Christmas. And that's my petty pee this week. That's it. Taxes, you know, these people for. For demanding things from anything from us outside of just, like, survival and endurance. Like you all. You all forever. But that's it. That's how we're going into this episode, because it was such an incredible episode. Once again, thank you to our incredible guest. Yeah, I'm just, again, so grateful for this community, so grateful for this space. Make sure you all check out the Patreon, where you get the video version in its entirety. In its fullness of this podcast is the best way to support Kia and I in these times of deep uncertainty and perilousness. And always thank you all for being who you are, for sitting with us at each and every kitchen table, and for just being in community with us. We wouldn't be able to do this without you and sister. Take them out. Take us. Tell us what to do.
- [116:00]
Host Kia
Make sure that you are taking care of yourself by attending to the business that is yours and yours alone, okay? It's very important that we prioritize ourselves. And like Dr. Wendy said, like, you know, don't be ashamed to put yourself first. And the way that you do that is really just staying focused on. On the cinnamon girls. And the cinnamon girls being you. You also want to moisturize your insides, okay? Because hydration is key, very important. And you can do that by drinking just as much water as your body can sustain. Every day.
- [116:35]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Every day.
- [116:37]
Host Kia
And finally, you want to hydrate and moisturize the outside of your body, the skin, which is your larger organ, because your black will, in fact, crack if it's dry.
- [116:52]
Host Jade
All right?
- [116:52]
Host Kia
And you can prevent that by, you know, moisturizing. So we love y'.
- [116:56]
Dr. Sharon Malone
All.
- [116:57]
Host Kia
Always Big, deep in my. All right, bye. Bye.
- [117:10]
Liberty Mutual Announcer
Liberty Mutual customizes your car and home insurance. And now we're customizing this rush hour ad to keep you calm, which could help your driving. And science says therapy is great for a healthy mindset. So enjoy this 14 second session on us. I think you've done everything right and absolutely nothing wrong. In fact, anything that hasn't gone your way could probably be blamed on your father not being emotionally available because his father wasn't emotionally available, and so on. And now that you're calm and healing. You're probably driving better, too.
- [117:37]
Pharmaceutical Announcer
Liberty. Liberty.
- [117:38]
Dr. Sharon Malone
Liberty.
- [117:39]
Pharmaceutical Announcer
Liberty.