063 - Psychosexual Medicine and Menopause - Dr Stephanie Goodwin & Dr Louise Newson
The Dr Louise Newson Podcast
Dr Louise Newson
4.7 • 935 Ratings
🗓️ 1 September 2020
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In episode 63 of the Newson Health podcast series, Dr Louise Newson is joined by Dr Stephanie Goodwin, a london-based GP, menopause specialist and specialist in Psychosexual medicine.
Together, Dr Newson and Dr Goodwin discuss the possible consequences of cancer treatment on women’s sex lives. Often sex isn’t discussed at the outset of treatment and it isn’t until much later that women have the opportunity to get advice.
Dr Goodwin also speaks about vaginal changes during the menopause and the importance of intimacy and keeping channels of communication open with your partner if sex becomes difficult during this time. Vaginal dryness is a very common problem that is easy to treat so don't be afraid to seek out advice.
Dr Stephanie Goodwin's Three Take Home Tips:
- If you are having cancer treatment, ask for advice about the possible impact on your sex life at the start. Find someone in the team who is comfortable discussing that with you.
- There are lots of resources available that can be helpful - Macmillan, Cancer Research UK, The Daisy Network (for younger women under 40) and The Institute of Psychosexual Medicine.
- Don’t be afraid to ask if you need help! That’s not just for cancer patients but for any women having sexual difficulties. If you don’t get help the first time, try someone else and keep asking.
Find Dr Goodwin on Instagram: @drstephaniegoodwin
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Newsome Health Menopause podcast. |
| 0:11.1 | I'm Dr Louise Newsome, a GP and menopause specialist, |
| 0:15.1 | and I run the Newsome Health Menopause and wellbeing centre here in Stratford-upon-Avon. |
| 0:30.3 | Today for this podcast, I'm really excited to have with me, Stephanie Goodwin, who is a GP and menopause specialist. She also is a specialist in psychosexual medicine, so we thought |
| 0:35.6 | today we'd focus more on this area of her work. So welcome |
| 0:39.2 | Stephanie. Hi Louise. Thanks. An interesting way to work for a change, isn't it? Both sitting at our |
| 0:45.0 | computers. It is. So Stephanie was going to come to my clinic, but we're in the depths of COVID. |
| 0:51.3 | So obviously we're socially distancing, but it's lovely to be able to still see |
| 0:55.3 | you and hear you and carry on doing this recording. Yeah, it's great. So tell me about your |
| 0:59.8 | background, Stephanie. Tell me about how did you become interested in psychosexual medicine? |
| 1:04.2 | And actually, even what is psychosexual medicine? Okay, so I became interested in psychosexual medicine about 22 years ago. I'm a GP and I just |
| 1:16.3 | started working in private practice when I was seeing a patient, a gentleman, and I was doing a |
| 1:22.9 | genital examination. And I remember it so clearly and he said to me, he'd had treatment for prostate cancer, |
| 1:28.9 | I think, I can't remember something. And he said, but of course, you'll see that my penis is shrinking |
| 1:34.7 | before your eyes, before our eyes. And I had no idea what to say. I was completely flawed |
| 1:42.3 | because I could see no problem at all, but it was obviously |
| 1:45.5 | his perception of what was happening to the body. And actually my cousin, who is also a doctor, |
| 1:52.0 | was working in psychosexual medicine with the Institute of Psychosexual Medicine. So I decided to start |
| 1:57.3 | training, and the training is done by seminars. So we'd meet every four weeks, present |
| 2:03.4 | cases. After two years you do a diploma, after four years you do a membership exam. And it's just |
| 2:10.8 | been really fascinating. And what it's about is looking at the physical and psychological aspects of sexual problems. Because of course, sex is a physical and an |
| 2:22.0 | emotional act. And whenever there's a problem with one part of that, there's a problem with the other. |
... |
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