On Peri and Pause the podcast, host interviews women’s health nurse practitioner Amanda Maingi, who shares why she chose women’s health, her education at Georgetown, and how menopause and perimenopause received limited focus in training despite women spending a third of life in this stage. Amanda describes noticing gaps while working in a fast-paced traditional GYN clinic, where time constraints and protocol-driven care could miss the “whole woman” experience. She contrasts younger patients’ typically more straightforward visits with the complexity of midlife, highlighting under-research, life stressors, and chronic conditions. Common perimenopause symptoms often mislabeled as anxiety or depression include sleep disruption, heart palpitations, brain fog, irritability, overwhelm, and feeling out of control. The episode emphasizes validation, individualized high-touch care beyond algorithms, and addresses misconceptions that hormone therapy is inherently dangerous, stressing risk-benefit tailoring and comprehensive evaluation.

00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro

00:53 Why Womens Health

02:17 Academic Journey Highlights

04:09 Menopause Education Gap

05:24 Clinic Reality and Missing Care

08:57 Midlife vs Younger Patients

13:14 Symptoms Mistaken for Anxiety

17:43 Beyond Protocols Individual Care

19:34 Patch And Pill Problem

21:21 Telehealth Versus High Touch

22:56 Layered Whole Woman Care

26:03 Validation First Visit

28:42 Hormone Therapy Myths

30:07 New Patient Expectations

31:53 Outro And Sign Off

32:23 Recording The Closing Script

34:16 Final Takeaway Message

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This podcast exists to normalize, explain, and elevate the midlife healthcare conversation—so women feel informed, believed, and empowered to demand better care for their bodies and lives.

Visit https://periandpause.com for more info

In this episode of Peri & Pause - The Podcast, the second in the “Meet the Nurse Practitioner” series, the host interviews nurse practitioner Nancy Chen about her path from studying exercise physiology at Meredith College to working as a personal trainer, then becoming a nurse and moving into critical care, urgent care during the pandemic, and traditional primary care. Nancy explains how limited appointment times and “moral injury” pushed her toward specializing in perimenopause and midlife women’s health, after seeing patients struggle with symptoms, chronic disease changes, and feeling dismissed due to gaps in training. She emphasizes the importance of education, validation, realistic expectations, individualized treatment, and helping women feel heard and hopeful, including reviewing complex medication and supplement “cocktails” and supporting women through the fluctuating “moving target” of perimenopause.

00:00 Meet Nancy Chen

00:53 Exercise Physiology Roots

01:24 From Trainer to Nurse

01:52 Critical Care Wake Up

03:11 NP Path and Pandemic

04:22 Primary Care Time Crunch

05:58 Midlife Symptoms Puzzle

07:32 Personal Perimenopause Realization

09:42 Hormones and the Care Gap

15:23 What Patients Need First

16:22 Follow-Up Wins

16:59 Building the Foundation

20:59 Grace in Perimenopause

24:08 Finding Your Care Team

24:33 Medication Cocktail Reset

25:35 Message to Midlife Women

27:17 Thanks and Disclaimer

In this episode of The Peri and Pause podcast, Jamie Gallagher launch the “Meet the Nurse Practitioner” series by introducing Kristen Nawyn, a board-certified adult gerontology nurse practitioner and Menopause Society–certified menopause specialist. Kristin shares her path from ICU nursing through the pandemic to palliative care interests focused on goals, values, and quality of life, and explains how a family medicine preceptorship revealed the gaps in menopause care and shifted her career. She discusses limited menopause education in graduate school, her oncology research on chemotherapy-induced early menopause in premenopausal cancer survivors, and how sudden induced menopause differs from natural menopause. Kristin describes common “loss of self” experiences in perimenopause, the biology of hormonal fluctuations, the need for anticipatory guidance, and how she builds trust with patients, addresses long-term hormone therapy concerns, and advocates for whole-person, time-rich menopause care.

00:42 Podcast Intro and Guest Spotlight

02:08 Kristin’s Nursing Origin Story

03:10 What Palliative Care Really Is

04:35 From ICU to Nurse Practitioner

05:52 Discovering the Menopause Care Gap

08:43 Graduate School vs Real Menopause Care

10:37 Thesis on Chemo Induced Menopause

13:04 Losing Your Sense of Self

15:05 Natural vs Induced Menopause

16:52 Better Care for Cancer Survivors

17:46 Staying On Hormones

18:57 Risks Of Stopping

21:02 ICU Lessons On Aging

22:50 Earning Patient Trust

25:52 Midlife Women Carrying It All

28:24 You Are Not Crazy

29:00 Whole Person Menopause Care

30:43 Emotional Weight And Guilt

32:36 Closing Thanks And Wrap

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This podcast exists to normalize, explain, and elevate the midlife healthcare conversation—so women feel informed, believed, and empowered to demand better care for their bodies and lives.

Visit https://periandpause.com for more info