Caitlyn Tivy on the Pelvic Health Questions Nobody Asks, Especially in LGBTQ+ Care
Updated: 28 minutes ago
What happens when a pelvic health expert takes on the medical taboos no one wants to talk about?
In this episode of ROAR, host Danielle Davies talks with Caitlyn Tivy, pelvic health physical therapist and founder of C. Tivy Consulting, about the intersection of women’s health, LGBTQ+ care, and FemTech innovation.
Caitlyn shares how her journey from biomedical researcher to clinician led her to advocate for more inclusive, evidence-based healthcare. Together, they dive into:
💥Topics we cover
• Why pelvic health is still misunderstood — and how to talk about it without shame
• The challenges LGBTQ+ patients face in traditional healthcare systems
• How FemTech can close gender and identity gaps in medicine
• What it takes to change medical culture from the inside
00:00 Introduction to Roar Podcast
00:25 Meet Caitlyn Tivy: Pelvic Health Expert
01:46 Caitlyn's Journey: From Research to Physical Therapy
02:26 Understanding Pelvic Health Physical Therapy
03:01 Challenges in Women's and LGBTQ+ Health
06:57 Breaking Taboos: Discussing Pelvic Health
14:43 Advocacy and Public Discourse in Healthcare
19:34 The Importance of Gender-Specific Research
28:41 The Push for Gender Inclusion in Research
30:13 The Role of Clinicians and Advocates in Public Health
31:50 Combating Misinformation and Disinformation
33:31 Bridging the Gap Between Healthcare and Tech
35:01 Challenges and Solutions in Femtech
42:29 The Importance of Human-Centered Design
50:04 Innovative Products in Women's Health
56:09 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
To get in touch with Caitlyn
Email: ctivy.consulting@gmail.com
LinkedIn:
PLUS, a sampling of Caitlyn's LinkedIn posts (just check out the level of research that goes into these!)
Listen to ROAR with Danielle Davies: Women, Culture & Impact on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. New conversations every Tuesday.
Full Transcript
This transcript was generated automatically and lightly cleaned up. It may contain small errors.
I'm not where hey I'm Danielle Davies and you're listening to Roar a show that amplifies the voices of women breaking barriers leading change and making real impact keep listening for bold ideas and stories that inspire you to find your voice and make some noise hello and welcome to the roar podcast I'm your host Danielle Davies and today we're speaking with Caitlyn TIVY the founder of C Tivy Consulting Caitlyn provides clinical Consulting and medical writing for women's and lgbtq plus Health Tech she's also a pelvic health physical therapist Kaylin and I connected several months ago in the copywriting space but what really is stood out to me are her extremely well researched post on LinkedIn where she writes a lot about the challenges of Women's healthc Care I will link to some of those posts in the show notes but for now we're here to talk about what she does how she does it and how it impacts Women's Health welcome to Roar Caitlyn awesome thanks so much for having me Danielle gled to be here thank you for being here I'm really excited because every one of your posts motivates me in a different way and they are so well thought out in fact prior to us talking we had send an email back and forth because I was like I you know so much information that I don't even know how to focus this so bear with us we are we're trying to focus it but we could diverge because Caitlyn is really like a research Queen so but before we go any further let's would you mind giving us some background on what you do as a pelvic health physical therapist and also if you don't mind letting us know what came first the physical therapy or the writing aspect of it yeah great question and it is complicated to explain what I do sometimes because I wear so many different hats but I started off in a mix of clinical and research work so I initially thought in my career that wanted to go into biomedical research and spent a couple years at the NIH doing very traditional bench lab research and got really into data and numbers there that's when I decided that being a bench scientist wasn't the right fit for me and ended up moving into the physical therapy World from there because it really combined my interests in science and data with real world actionable steps to help individuals and people so I still do practice part-time as a pelvic health physical therapist and for those of your listeners who might not know pelvic pts specialize in not just the pelvis but a lot of things related to our pelvic Health like bladder bowel Sexual Health reproductive Wellness pelvic pain concerns and concerns in the area like hips low back the whole the whole shebang and it was through that work that I got really more and more interested in the specific issues facing female health and queer Health in the United States and abroad I have a lot of the lens locally in the US but I'm also pretty tuned into Global issues as well and how they differ from country to Country and how some of these marginalized populations face really unique health challenges and that's what drew me into working in writing and Consulting for health tech companies I worked for a health Tech startup for a couple years as an employee as a clinician through their teleah health platform and really saw some of the problems facing the industry and how there was a really big need to combine both the interest in developing Tech that would work for people and increase access to care but making sure that it's scientifically backed by research and all this nerdy stuff that I love to write about that you've so warmly complimented so that's kind of how I ended up where I am today long circuitous Journey but no I love I love it and it sounds like you're in exactly the right place for you because it does combine all of these areas of interest and you know what's so great about modern technology and where we're going in many ways what I like about modern technology is it allows us to kind of combine all of those areas of interest and all those areas of expertise into one kind of cohesive career fit you know that incorporates a lot of parts sorry I'm really moving today no it's all good it's it's what happens when multi-passionate people get together and talk about their any passion so exactly we have a lot of movement and just really quickly want to stay on the Physical Therapy part for one second sure I you know prior to getting involved in anything related to do with fem Tech I really didn't even know that you could have a pelvic physical therapist how do people get referred to you how do you how do people find these people in their lives you are not the only one definitely not that doesn't know who we are or what we do the specialty within PT is becoming more and more well known and there's I think and we have to give some credit to all the influencers and social media for making it more obvious to the general public that it's an option but so many people are in the same place that you are they don't know that it's a that it is a treatment type until they need it until they're running into a problem so more clinicians especially primary care doctors and gynecologists and urologists have become aware of our work and do refer people to us but a lot of pelvic Health pts myself included Market directly to the public as well because their clinicians may not know about us if they're just not as up to date on the literature or they just might not be recommended to come to see a pelvic Health PT because people assume maybe that all we can do is help with bladder leakage which is one thing we can definitely help with but it's not the only symptom or concern okay so I think it's a mix I think people find us through us marketing ourselves through referrals from clinicians who are really on top of the research and then also from Googling because a lot of people are like why is does it feel like my vagina is falling out of my body and then they learn about pelvic or organ prolapse and then they realize there's someone I can see for that so yes and that's I actually only learned about I guess well I was when I read about it sounded like it was pelvic floor prolapse is that what you just said too the technical term is pelvic organ prolapse where it orans are descending through the vaginal Canal yeah so somebody might have said floor right yeah they might have for sure y it was a woman on Facebook that I'm friendly with she posted years ago like this just happened to me this is like you'll never believe it but this is a thing and it and it was the first time I even heard about this so if that's a problem somebody can refer themselves but they might not even know what it's called when they're having the problem exactly definitely so for those situations I tell people one of our magical powers I think as pelvic Health pts is we're not afraid of any of these taboo topics we talk about pee poop and sex for a living so you cannot embarrass us and you definitely cannot surprise us we've heard it all so if you think it is something going on with vaginal Health bladder bowel sexual function even these things that are hard to talk about and maybe hard to ask people chances are a pelvic Health PT probably knows how to treat it or know knows how to get you to someone that can treat it that just goes you know it's swimmingly into our first actual question that I have for you which is the idea of these tabos so topics like this it's so interesting so I'm 50 and so my generation you know it's every generation's getting better and better I think about opening up about these topics and you know my daughter's 15 and it's a you hear what goes on and it's a whole different it's a whole different world than I was raised in and then for my mom who's 75 it's a whole you know each generation is becoming better and better at embracing these topics that were previously taboo but really important exactly so what strategies do you use to break down these barriers and make these conversations not just engaging because they are but accessible and make people comfortable having them because even though you might be comfortable talking about poop not everybody is you know it's like the conversation we have with our Toddlers and then we stop talking about it exactly yeah that's a really great point and I love that you recognize how the the general pattern in society is changing thankfully but we still have a lot of work to do and it is really dependent on someone's socioeconomic status and their education and the maybe the political environment in which they grew up how open was their family or not their religious background if they have one so it is super variable even within individual Generations for me what I found in my professional life both as a clinician and as a consultant and writer in this space the more true I am to myself the better my message comes across and I'm a very open person and I recognize that there's a lot of people that feel more closed off about these issues but I know that if I act awkward or uncomfortable or don't speak openly about the issues that clearly comes across as inauthentic to the person I'm speaking with so I have to start from where I'm comfortable which is being open and just saying the word vagina like it's no big deal because it is no big deal that said I have to balance that with the person in front of me I tend to use humor a lot because I think for many of us if we can laugh about it's less scary right and I find when I'm speaking to for example a person who's a patient and is feeling really vulnerable sitting in a room with me for the first time if I can get a little giggle or at least a smile out in the first couple minutes you can just see the tension melt away and the same thing happens when I'm speaking with a client in health Tech and maybe there's something that they're not feeling as comfortable talking about or don't know how to approach me or how I'm going to react so humors are a really powerful tool but I have to balance it with the seriousness of the issues that we're talking about okay some people are not going to respond well to that a really great example one of my current clients is we're working in the cancer space the gynecologic cancer survivorship and creating a medical device in that space that's a really heavy topic and it comes with a lot of really complicated symptoms painful sex is a big one that's a side effect of cancer treatment and that's emotionally loaded for so many people so yeah I can bring humor in a little bit but I have to temper that with some acknowledgement of this sucks I'm sorry I'm sorry you have to deal with this is really heavy and meet that person where they are with their energy when we're discussing it and that makes it a lot easier to open up the conversation when I'm talking to a bigger audience though like on social media I don't know that individual person who's reading my post or watching my video so that's where I come back to being authentic to me which is open usually a little bit of humor and a lot of data and research to back up what I'm saying you know it's funny you're saying this because I do think I'm thinking about your post obviously I'm not your patient I have not been in these spaces but your post you do use humor and you do use that data and I notice an absence of even though you I can tell you are outrage so you're you're really good about presenting something in a nonloaded way and just presenting the facts and letting people kind of take the information and sit with it on their own instead of saying hey you know I to be like Furious all the time yeah totally so I really appreciate that you are able to I feel like maybe that comes with your training maybe it's part of who you are I don't know but you're really able to do that in a way that doesn't you know incite Fury or outrage you know people basically instead of just being frustrated with the maybe kind of lack of research in women's health which obviously is frustrating you're also giving them something to take away that they can do themselves which I think is really helpful because if you're just outraged that's where you're leaning instead of you know what I'm talking about totally I'm I'm so glad to hear that comes through Danielle because that's something I'm always concerned about and I know you and I have had conversations before where we're both just like God I'm so angry about this and we can say that to each other in conversation but when I'm working to educate people in my in my professional platforms I know I have to temper that a little bit to avoid exactly what you're saying because I mean rage bait is such a thing online now right like it's so easy to get clicks with a really Intense or really provocative headline but if you don't offer anything to follow that up you just leave people angry and that doesn't make change right that doesn't inspire people to make a next step or learn more or open up a discussion and it's really funny that you bring that up now because this past month I've been really focusing a lot of my writing work around the issue of abortion medicine and reproductive rights and planning and super obviously a super loaded issue especially in the states right now and this is the first time that I'm actually getting a lot of trolls commenting on my work which on LinkedIn I hadn't really experienced before because it is maybe more of a professional platform and I think people censor themselves a little more it's not Anonymous you know it's a little more clear who you are if you're posting these things but that's changing so it's been something I've had to really work on and kind of self-edit and let myself feel the anger and the frustration because good God do I feel it but then taking that and making it something actionable and taking making a choice to edit what I'm talking about and reframe it so that we can actually have a productive discussion around it so that's always my goal yeah and that's actually the next thing I wanted to ask you know you've been vocal about shortcomings in women's in lgbtq plus health care so what inspired you I know you know you're reseearch based and you've got this clinical side but what and thing is you're busy you've got a lot of work to do but what inspired you to take this Beyond clinical work into public discourse yeah totally several things I think the clinical experience of working with individual people inspired a lot of the empathy behind what I do it sounds cliche but I really consider myself an empath and that way I mean when someone's sitting in front of me talking about pain or a really embarrassing or debilitating problem that they have I tend to internalize it a lot and feel it a lot inside and I take some of that home with me from a clinician standpoint any clinician will tell you that's not the best pattern because that leads to burnout which is very real but a lot of people in my space have that characteristic and that's what gets us into caring professions in the beginning and to begin with right so that is where I first kind of identified with so many of these barriers and seeing the problems people had accessing care and how many folks like you who maybe had a couple kids but never even knew so many of these problems could result from child birth for example or we're entering per menopause and no one has spoken to them about that transition and what they can do to manage it people who are highly educated intelligent people who just don't have any of the information and then additionally folks who lack that education who don't have access to a lot of training who maybe have language barriers economic barriers that are preventing them from getting the care they need so I saw all sorts in the clinic and I still do and that always the having that human face on it for me always reminds me of the humanity of these barriers and how they in affect individuals so writing for me started as a way to process a lot of that as a way to kind of bring home some of that heaviness that I was feeling and get it out of here and process it more as well as share it with other people and I've always been really interested in advocacy work and I've been involved in it since gosh since I was an undergrad so finding a way to dovetail the two my personal experiences that I was processing and all the data that was building up behind that with something that could actually make a change and help people transform the problem and make it better that's really what I wanted to find and that's where I focused all of my work since then and it's an ongoing an ongoing challenge that I that I like to get up and work on every day so I'm lucky I love how you've chosen to kind of diffuse those feelings or kind of like temper them I think it's a great idea and I do want to say I wanted to I can't I don't want to Sidetrack my own self but I have to comment you mentioned you know that's not always great to be so empathetic as a clinician and I think it's really interesting because like obviously all career pths all career paths all over the world seem to have been originated by men so we walk into them as women and we're told oh well this one you know you're not supposed to care too much and as somebody who used to be in politics I used to hear that a lot like oh I think you might you might be you might be too emotional for this you might care too much and I'm like if I didn't care I wouldn't be involved and also I think maybe I think we need to flip the script on that and say I think people need to care a little more because it's not just this like analytical stuff it is there are emotions tied to things and that is okay like it's okay to have a human reaction so thank you for having that do you want to could you share your perspective on some of the issues that are facing the communities that you're dealing with today and talk about what kind of changes you would like to see to improve Healthcare outcomes and I and it's one of the things that obviously you and I know that now audience is everywhere we'll know or is I you know you had been talking about lack of research I can't remember why I sent you this specific article but we talked about the idea that there were like almost no studies at all ever in the world on the clitoris and so there's a doctor Rachel Rubin who's known as the clitorist because she's literally like the only doctor that studies it and like such a Preposterous it almost seems like it's a joke which is why I'm laughing but it's real so what are some of the issues that you are seeing that you find to be the most pressing one and maybe that's not it you know I just out there as something because we are for those who don't know women have not been included in research studies historically and so there's a lot of information we don't have about our own bodies yeah totally and that's such a great question thank you thank you for raising it Danielle because that particular statistic too is has become more welln at least in the women's health space recently but I think it Bears repeating that if you were born before 1993 you have been alive longer than women were required to be in clinical trials in the United States so that includes both you and I and it's just mind-blowing I feel old but that makes me feel old holy smokes so that and there's and there's more and more push to rectify that so in 2016 the NIH pushed through an initiative that started to emphasize the need for researching sex as a biological variable it's abbreviated sabv so if you see that somewhere that stands for studying sex as a biological variable and just to be clear on the definition I think we often interchange use sex and gender as the same word in modern discourse but they are not the same thing when we're talking about sex as a biological variable we're talking about the direct impact of sex chromosomes XY XX xxy whatever someone's particular variant is and how those chromosomes and the genes that they control and encode affect their outcomes in health and it's very complicated genetics gets real hairy so I don't want to get down the rabbit hole too far but there's been more push in that area to initiate the way we look at data from that lens from independently associating excuse me from independently separating out male and female study participants for example and maybe those few that might fall more on the intersect spectrum and looking at their outcomes differently so that's progress which is great but that was initiated in 2016 within than a decade hard to believe and it still hasn't been rolled out not all studies are doing a great job of adhering to the nih's recommendation in that regard so that's where we continue to need advocacy we continue to need to remind people that there's a really specific reason why we want to look at data specifically based on one's biological sex and how that might affect their health okay and this applies across the Spectrum I think about this a lot in the lens of the queer community and someone who might be gender conforming or gender fluid and might not identify as a woman for example but that person still needs to get breast cancer screening for example they still might need to get cervical cancer screening and they those populations often are not educated that they need to continue to get that care because of their innate biological predisposition to problems in that area we also know that population is more predisposed to having adverse Health outcomes because of various social determinant discrimination fear about going to the doctor because they might be discriminated against Etc okay but thinking about how sex affects Health outcomes is critical continuing to research that and push for research and funding in that area that's huge that dovetails into my second point which I think is it's really important that we continue to recognize that we are not in a post gender world I identify very strongly as a feminist and I think when people hear me say that they think oh she hates men she's just a crazy bra burning just she's going to cause trouble she's she's GNA make any conversation really difficult and she's GNA stomp on everything that I say blah blah right that is not who I am and that is not the modern definition of feminism the modern definition of feminism is really using gender and sex as a lens to look at culture and make culture more inclusive for all of us because the patriarchy really hurts everyone very cisgender male presenting people included it hurts all of us and I think that there's a lot of push in society right now that oh well we're past that we don't need feminism anymore if you want to be equal you don't need to be pulled out and looked at separately we don't need to study you differently you want to be equal why don't we just study everyone as a group why don't we treat everyone exact the same there's a difference between equality and equity and we can get into that if that's helpful in the definitions but I think it's critical that we remember given how recent so many of these changes are in the way we study in the way we look at medical problems and the way we research Health we are just barely scratching the surface and we need to continue to push for a very specific lens on the way that we treat people medically and the way that we research people medically without creating discrimination but instead promoting more equity and promoting more tailored ways of caring for People based on their own predispositions and their makeup as a human being yes I hope that makes sense that was a lot it does because and it also blows my mind that anybody would push back against this and I understand that like for clinical studies obviously there's a lot of work that goes into it that I will never come pretend so I get that people might push back because anytime somebody has more work to do they tend to push back they don't like it right nobody wants to be told how to do their job but yes but the thing is it's so obvious I mean if the female and I'm gonna mess you up in terms of not at all not at all use your the way you use them are if women are pushing out children that affects the I would imag that affects all our organs right that affects our body I mean I remember having my son and my ankles as I had him and I had a lot I had IV treatment at the time we both felt fevers it was not a big deal but I remember my ankles were just so humongous and it's like these are things that people who've had children will say oh yeah that happens but no you have no preparation you don't understand how child birth is going to affect different parts of your body and forget just your body how it's going to affect your emotions your mental health it's it's a huge thing just that aspect alone seems like why would we not be studying people differently and also isn't that what we want from all things I mean isn't isn't individualism or individual treatment what we want out of yeah education medicine I get that there's like a common denominator and there needs to be right everybody needs to learn these certain things and everybody needs to be treated in a certain way so we you know everybody might need BL blood test and everybody might need this but from there do we not just establish that as a baseline is that not just exactly we should say not that's the worst we can do and go from there not say that's the best we can do it blows my mind that there's push back totally and I think that's a really great point so obviously there's there's there's a culture war going on in the United States and I think all of us are aware of that and that's its own issue when it comes to speaking about these concerns but even if we take a step back and look at why haven't we been studying women why haven't we been studying people that aren't even on the gender binary Spectrum why haven't we been looking at this and specifically if we think about people with uteruses this is a really Salient example of why some of this happened that might help people understand and feel a little less inflamed maybe about the issue I always try to remind myself and the initial reason that we stopped including women in clinical trials in the United States was intended from a place of good and it arose from the thalidomide scandals in the middle of the C 20th century when women were receiving this medication called the lamide to help with morning sickness theoretically and it actually ended up causing tons and tons of really Advanced and really extreme congenital deformities in the children that they were carrying and some of them died some of them were born missing like skulls for example really severe so then everyone panicked and thought Oh my God we cannot be using any medication in pregnancy or in people that are trying to become pregnant we can't do anything because we have no idea what it'll do to the babies so there was sweeping legislation that went through and said well if you're of childbearing age regardless of whether or not you want to have children we don't get to include you because you might get pregnant and then the baby could get screwed up again came from a place of trying to be protective but ended up being very a negative outcome for the population so the other thing even now you think all right well we know that's we're past that point we should know better now we can experiment safely we can conduct trials in such a way that aren't going to harm babies or aren't going to harm potentially pregnant people but think about this consideration when ni was releasing this movement to try to get sex as a biological variable into research more some scientists push back because they felt that even animal models like female mice for example would skew their d data because females were inherently more complicated because theoretically our body temperature fluctuates too significantly during our menstrual cycle and that could mess up the way that their data comes out and make it less clean turns out that's been disproven our body temperature does not fluctuate substantially enough to affect that kind of data but that was the predominant idea at the time and that's what caused many scientists even well-intentioned W to choose male mice or male human subjects participants for their studies so there's a lot of baggage behind why this happens but that's the continued battle we have to disabuse people of these Notions so we can figure out all right it's not as complicated as we think and even if it is complicated is critical that we do this work I was just gonna say so what's the answer and you just said it because right it may be more complicated and I'm not I mean yes I can see why it would be more complicated especially with the example that you gave about the pregnancy and that's like such a huge issue but it doesn't mean we abandon ship it means we have sales so exactly yeah I gotcha and I thank you I well and I I think it's interesting too and I was saying what you know what role do you think individuals like yourself clinicians consultants and Advocates play in shaping the future of Public Health for women and lgbtq plus communities but also some don't NE neily I feel like you do especially because you are willing to educate while you're practicing and while you're doing your work so I just was curious like how do you in particular hope to shape the future of these communities if really good question no that's it's a great question and there's a lot to it and I think it's G to be different for different people but for me education and advocacy is just it build me back up it feeds me so it's it doesn't usually feel like a chore or an additional step of course there are times when I have a really busy schedule and have a heavy clinical load and several clients for my business all needing things at the same time and it feels like a lot but one thing I always come back to is how much I enjoy digging into their research and then getting to translate it into normal English for people that's I think one of my strongest skill sets so for me it feels like nourishment so I'm lucky in that regard it might not for everyone but regardless of our leanings whether it's someone like me who is nourished from this type of work or someone that doesn't respond to that kind of work but wants to have an impact there's still ways that we can do it whether we're clinicians whether we're Women's Health Advocates without a clinical background whether we're a Founder building a startup for women whatever it is we have a really important duty in these spes when we're educating the public regardless of our lens that we're coming from if we are in a place of even small amount of power and that we have a platform like a podcast or a following on social media that we need to make sure that the information we're giving to women and to more marginalized populations or subpopulations is backed by fact there is so much nonsense out there and you know you're invol you're you see it all the time there's misinformation and disinformation I think about them as two separate animals I think of misinform as people making honest mistakes in not necessarily reading the details of research that they're reporting on or not necessarily digging in to see how applicable what they're talking about is to multiple populations they're just trying to get info out there and be as helpful as they can but miss something along the way versus disinformation which is how I see it as deliberate malignant manipulation of fact to serve a political end a personal end a social end whatever it is regardless both are out there both are rampant and the more connected our world becomes on the internet and social media and various other ways the more those concerns are going to spread that Miss and disinformation so as people that have platforms for education and have lots of Education ourselves and the ability to analyze data and explain it to others we have an obligation to do that as clearly as we can and as often as we can to help weed through the nonsense and the mess and then I think my other point would be that for clinicians especially there's a desperate need for clinicians and scientists in the health Tech and Innovation space and we can talk about this more if it's relevant but one thing I often see is a mentality that healthc care providers and Technical innovators are diametrically opposed and have opposite goals and will never get along and I don't think that's true or that it has to be true the biggest problem is that people view often Healthcare Providers as very cautious which we are trained to be obviously because we are holding human lives in our hands and human well-being in our hands right and people view Tech innovators as very move fast break things make it work figure it out on the way as you're building the ship right and for to me those two opposing approaches are actually made for each other because they counter each other out and that's how you push forward a product that is innovative but also safe and helpful and productive so I think finding better ways for us to work together as an ecosystem rather than seeing each other as enemies or as contradictory to each other is going to be critical to making sure that new products coming out onto the market are doing what they promise or doing what we hope they do for patients and for users in general I it's funny too because you know I went to a fem Tech Conference in June and it was great it was it was such an excellent experience and I learned so much and met really amazing people but one of the things I noticed is that there are a lot of people there in the investor space because they're investing these products and the people developing the products obviously need the investors I mean it's a symbiotic relationship whereas medical professionals a lot of times like that's that is not their not I'm generalizing and I don't know if I'm corre but I think that why they well they may work for Hospital systems and they may have to deal with kind of the system there that and insurance and financial aspects of their practice they're not catering to investors and they are not having to embody that space so for them it might feel a little bit like oh this is not what we do we work with the people we took the hypocritic oath whether know that's Do no harm and we're going to be cautious about it because of that whereas you know so it does seem like it would be kind of a tough although it innately make sense to me why they working together it does seem like it would be a tough thing for people who've been in these fields for a long time especially you know the longer you do something the more Stu you are in the way that you do it so been in this for long time to kind of come together do you have any ideas or suggestions or do you see it work in some better than others such a keen Insight Danielle yeah I definitely do and I have a great anecdote from a company that I used to work for and I was speaking with a colleague who was also a clinician herself she was the only one on the product team so she was the only one working directly with the engineers and the other tech folks to create the product for the patient and she asked for help she's like I need another clinician on this team to help me with my workload I have too much and her colleagues her non-clinical colleagues on the team told her oh we don't want to hire another clinician you guys are too de detail oriented and difficult to work with that was the feedback she got and I was taken aback by that now there are valid points I think on both ends of the Spectrum in that yes some clinicians can be very stuck in their ways and are inherently distrustful of Technology and of anybody who's non-clinical coming in and telling them things I think gosh the recent events in healthcare with the United Healthcare CEO being assassinated really talks to us about like how much distrust there is in from the general public around non-medical people interfering in medicine and how much Med medical professionals hate non-medical people interfering in medicine but the truth is we need different brains with different training to work in the modern world and to solve the types of problems that we Face the average surgeon does not have the engineering capability to create a new surgical robot for example that surgeon needs to work with Engineers to create something that fixes their problem and helps them treat patients better we cannot live in silos anymore so this is the type exact type of Gap that I'm trying to bridge in my own work now I'm just one person but because I've been in both spheres I've been in healthcare I've been an employee in health Tech I've been a freelance consultant in health Tech I've been in all of these different places I can see the bigger picture a little bit more broadly I think than colleagues who have not and that's where I'm trying to bring folks together to say okay I'm going to bring the clinical Insight I'm going to bring the research and the data and then we're going to figure out how to together we can make this work for your goals how can we make your product as good as it can possibly be and as effective as it can possibly be so we're not settling for I think the term you used earlier was the worst possible at the lowest bar right we're always even if the first iteration isn't perfect how can we make it good enough that it is safe and we'll do what it says and then have plans to make it better as we show its Effectiveness so I think it's a lot comes from a lot of helping clinicians understand the in the needs of investors and Founders and helping Founders understand why they need clinicians and scientists on their team in addition to technical folks and their me and their business Companions and their investors why we need a really diverse Workforce to create a product that actually makes a difference in people's health and it's interesting because I guess you know where we are we're almost a 2025 this is really the first I mean I'm sure it's been it's been headed this way for a long time but it seems like it more than ever we do need to find these collaborations because your example is so great like obviously a surgeon is not going to I mean maybe some surgeon has double but for the most part I would imagine most surgeons don't have the skill set to then develop the computerized like the robot that's going to do but likewise the engineer doesn't have the surgical skill they're not going to know you really do need to collaborate exactly I really thank you I like this okay all right so that's what so let's let tell me what are your hopes for the future of fem Tech and quer Tech is this what I mean is that your hope that we come together to do these things or do you have specific things in mind when it in terms of what needs to happen ensure these industries fulfill their potential to serve Patients First totally yeah I definit I mean I definitely do I think decreasing that tension between the two supposedly opposing sides will be a big step forward in making progress in industry particularly in health Tech but I'd also really just love to see a continued dedication to making sure that the products that are rolling out quickly because I understand the ecosystem I understand you need to roll out a minimum VI product viable product excuse me to get investors and then you can take that investment money to make the product better we get it's an iterative process but we need to make sure that the products that are developing on the Market or what people need and want of course so they're going to buy them or use them and that they're going to be effective two points on this I cannot tell you how many times I've had someone come in as a patient and tell me well I tried XYZ in product and none of them worked for me at home so I don't know if there's any hope for me well there's hope for that person they just were using the wrong tool or they weren't be using it in the right way so there's nothing that's going to make patients or other users more frustrated and give up hope quicker than trying one or two products that give them no progress or Worse make or even worse make their problems more severe right in women's health especially and in sexual health and in more of these quote unquote taboo areas we may only have one shot to help someone get better and to catch them before they lose hope or just give up so we need to make sure that shot we give them is a good one it's going to work and it's not just a Band-Aid so that's one the second point is that oh gosh that we have a very human centered approach to what we're designing I wrote a I wrote a LinkedIn post recently about a couple products that came out some years ago one of them was a pillow that you stick between your breasts at night to prevent them from getting wrinkly so you don't wake up with breast wrinkles in the morning who asks for this and I was like this is did anybody need this another was a product designed by a German company headed by unsurprisingly three men who designed a Vine didn't I don't even know if they designed it they had a bright pink latex glove that you could use to remove tampons to avoid mess with menstrual products and their marketing was centered around ew periods are gross decrease the yuck a essentially which is problematic on many fronts but clearly they didn't speak to their to their us I don't it closed quickly okay there was a lot of public outroar so I don't think it even had time to sell but clearly they didn't research they didn't realize this is not what menstruators are looking for right now right and we also don't want to create more stigma around menstruation so understanding what a women and queer folks really need what they're missing right now and what their Healthcare Providers need talking to all those stakeholders before developing a product all the way to the end you might have a really good idea as a Founder for example or think it's a good idea but realize oo not in this exact form that I envisioned maybe if I tweak it'll be exactly what my providers or my potential audience needs so involving all those stakeholders from patient and the people who care for them can really help to make sure the products that are getting to Market are value aren't going to increase stigma and are actually going to work and then the last point I'll make on this is we I think we really have an I truly believe we have an ethical responsibility in this particular space because we're talking about health we're talking about probably one of the most valuable intangibles in our lives they always say health as wealth right you hear that cliche and it's not wrong anyone who's struggled with a chronic illness or a debility itting injury can tell you when you don't have your full health the rest of life is harder and I always encourage folks especially those who maybe haven't been in medicine or haven't worked with people face to face even in another field if you are not going to recommend your product wholeheartedly to your mom to your sister to your little cousin to your daughter whoever it is if you can't Envision that person stakes in front of you and say you would recommend that product to them without reservation that product does not belong on the market it is not ready it is not good enough yet and you need to work to make it better before you start selling it to other people who maybe you don't know because that person is someone else's mom someone else's sister Etc that's my that's I and I and I know this is totally a generalization but do you ever feel that I mean are you know you mentioned the period glove yes and I don't know what else to call it the yuck glove so and it was developed by men and you know and I would not presume to really know what my husband or son might need and sometimes I find these things shocking somebody will be like well I really need this and I'm like get the heck out of here like right I just it never occurred to me but do you find I mean is it a generalization that women are creating products that women need because I find I I feel like I talk about this in every podcast episode and I'm really gonna have to temper that it can't be said enough you know I used to be part of a mom's it's called mom's running so we talk to a lot of moms and we talk to a lot of women who run for office and a lot of times what they would say the difference is and Tammy Duckworth specifically said this to me was that you know a lot of times men will say you know I woke up and I looked in the mirror and I thought I would be a great president and I'm not knocking them that's a whole different it is a whole different world for a man in the country and I'm not knocking them I'm not I don't I don't know what those challenges are because I'm not a man and I don't know how a man comes to this decision but I will say that for me and for the women that I've spoken to and she pointed this out that it was from her perspective as well a lot of times you find yourself running for office not because you want to in fact many times you don't want to but you feel that there is a problem that needs to be solved and I feel like it's the same way I've noticed with a lot of women that I've spoken to in advocacy or fem Tech they're speaking up not because they feel like doing this a lot of times they had jobs that they were successful in there were fields that they were interested in but they realized hey I see this problem and nobody's fixing it so I'm gonna I'm gonna throw my hat in the ring here to do my best to get it solved are you seeing that some of the products that are coming out are that are more effective I mean your personal obviously we're not doing study here on this but your personal response do you feel like they're more created by women I want to say women Centric I mean are you seeing that products for women are best created by women yeah that's that's a great point I there I think there's a reason why 70% of Founders in fem Tech are female and that's way higher than the founder ratio in startups in general outside of femtech I don't remember what the number is in non-female Health companies but it is like orders of magnitude higher and you're right many of those Founders this is why I love working in this space because many of the founders are inspired by their own struggles or the struggles of a loved one and that's what gets them into this role that they never expected to be in just like someone running for office because they felt like they had to solve the problem because it was driving them crazy and those are often the most motivated people too and they're great they're great to work with because they're so passionate about what they're doing and that's of course like you said this is not to say that there aren't there are many amazing male Advocates out there that are really interested in this research and this work and the one of the companies that the cancer organization I was speaking with in gynecologic cancer our CEO is a male he's fantastic he's an OBGYN he understands a lot of these issues from his professional experience and from being a dad and living with his wife but he has interesting insights but if you're not involving people with that lived experience on your team to who you're missing something and my lived experience is not the same as your lived experience is not the same as my father's lived experiences or my partners right we we have to involve people with the skills and people with the lived experiences and bring them together to create the best product and many times women are designing these amazing new products because they're solving a problem for themselves and then it becomes a bigger company and a bigger product from there yeah I that part about I love that aspect of it I and I was goingon to ask you and this is totally putting you on the spot so I can edit this out do you have any products that or or devices or apps that have struck you lately as like really being on the right track oh yeah especially because we're talking about you know unfortunately there do you know Rachel Honeyman do you know her I interviewed her a few weeks ago because not only is she a copywriter but she also treat she also treats women in self-defense tring to be so interesting and she was talking about she's like you know a lot of people and it's the misguided thing again yeah misinformation a lot of people share information but unfortunately it's stuff that's going to get you even more physically hurt and when we're talking about physical pain and physical repercussions like we're talking about in health yeah it you should it's easy to identify when something's very wrong do you have any recommendations for just things that you've seen that you think you know these people are on the right track are very right oh yeah totally happy to share with you I love geeking out about this stuff I'll preface it by saying not I'm not sponsored by any of these Brands I don't have a an Financial relationship with any of these brands or devices they're just devices that I think are really cool and very effective and I've seen them work in myself or other people I love the comp the pelvic people they were formerly called onut but they have two devices two key products now one is their original onut which is a series of stackable silicone rings that folks who deal with painful penetration during intercourse can use to create a buffer if their partner is male or if they're using dildos for penetration and these can decrease the depth of penetration in a way that's comfortable for both partners and decrease pain and fear around sex and they also recently released somewhat recently released a second product that's focused for people with pain with initial penetration so depth isn't their problem but they have a lot of pain with initial insertion during sex so they have another product called the Kiwi which is designed to help with that and they're approaching their work from a very kind of bioc Psychosocial aspect because not only are they selling these products but they're also offering education they have an online what they call their pelvic gym to teach people about pelvic floor tightness and Trauma and PTSD and all these other things that can impact the pain experience especially pain around sex so they're taking a really holistic view so I love their work I'm working with another company too that is just getting ready to launch actually they're really in their infancy but this company's called ladybug l a d bug and the co-founders are working to create an e-commerce platform that is specific for women's products for female Health Products across a whole range of conditions like menstrual products pregnancy postpartum fertility menopause bone health the whole nine yards and what they're really focused on is making sure all their products are vetted properly by a medical Advisory Board they're prioritizing products that are perhaps FDA cleared or FDA approved that have undergone rigorous thirdparty testing for quality for example anything you might inject they're steering clear of things that might be a little more shy and don't have a lot of evidence yet to back them up because some of those could be potentially harmful and if not harmful maybe ineffective so they're really trying to create us a trusted platform that isn't the Amazon of Women's Health Products but is a more curated Library where women can go and find things that they can trust with research backing for them so I love that idea that's still coming to parition it's still in progress absolutely really cool yeah and it speaks to what you said you know when it's a product that's ineffective or Worse actually bad but let's just say it's ineffective you might lose people who that was their only time they were GNA look so exactly this way everything's already vetted you know you've got a much better chance I mean I know not everything's going to work for everybody but exactly that probably helps limit the field exactly and like we were talking about earlier some people you only have one or two chances and you mess up they're never going to look for help again and they may be suffering in silence for the rest of their life with their condition so that's super important the last couple brand just two more companies I want to mention Lassa health is doing really amazing work in the endometriosis space in trying to help create a digital platform for both providers and patients to make the process of diagnosing endometriosis and other chronic pelvic pain conditions eventually smoother because right now the average woman goes 7 to 10 years before she receives that an endo diagnosis and it's a really dehab debilitating condition that can take away a lot of years and a lot of quality of life years U from someone's life and then py health is doing really cool work in the space of pelvic floor health education so they're really focused on the pelvis and what do our pelvic floor muscles do for us this is my world 100% And there's not nearly enough information out there for the people that I work with clinically and I see people coming back confused with questions no matter how hard people like me try to teach patients and try to empower patients they need more reinforcement most people understand and remember maybe half of what a doctor tells them in a given medical appointment so having some other sort of reinforcement and a trusted educational platform for that information is going to be really huge so that people aren't resorting to you know influencers on Tik Tok to get all of their medical their medical training and their medical information so those are a few I could go on there's so many cool products in this space but those are a few of my favorites oh I love that thank you so much I could talk to you all day but I will I will not make you sit through this I but I really appreciate your insights into this and I feel like just I mean obviously you have to keep up what you're doing because it's so beneficial I think for the people who are out there you know reading what you post obviously what you do in your professional life but also the fact that you go ahead and you share this educational information is very beneficial and and I appreciate it I'm gonna link back to Caitlyn and her website and also her LinkedIn space well I'll do all her socials but particularly I'm going to pull out a couple links to some specific posts so you can people can read them and see exactly what we're talking about I should have started with a post I should have post and I didn't do that all good thank you so much for your time I really appreciate it and yeah and we'll be in touch soon but thank you sounds great thanks so much for your time and your Keen questions as well Danielle really appreciate it you're the best all right have a great day thank you bye
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