Welcome to You Are Not Broken, the podcast that challenges everything we've been taught about

midlife, hormones, and sexuality. I'm Dr. Kelly Casperson, board certified jurologist, author,

and a leading voice in women's sexual and hormone health. Enjoy the show. Hey, everybody,

welcome back to the You Are Not Broken podcast. This is like the most long overdue competition to have Dr. Elizabeth Coleman on this podcast because by no fault of her, I've had to reschedule like multiple times. So welcome finally to the You're Not Broken podcast, Dr. Elizabeth Cohen.

Thrilled to be here. You're a busy lady, but we made it work. Between you and me, we're busy people. So you are a practicing oncologist in New York City, NYU, and you're a busy lady but we made it work between you and me we're busy people so you are a practicing oncologist in new york city NYU and you wrote a very popular book that everybody loved and i loved it i took i took a while to read it and then i like read it in a weekend because it was so effing good and it's called all in her head and. And it's phenomenal. And it's about the history. For anybody who likes the history of medicine, it's a very good history book. And it also gets you a little pissed. If you thought, like, maybe things aren't equal in health care between the genders. If you ever thought that, this book proves it. Thank you. I really appreciate your endorsement. It's phenomenal. And you have a,

you, I'm going to get it wrong, but your undergrad was in history or history of medicine. This book's

been coming, right? This, I've always wanted to do this. So I majored in the history of science at

Harvard, which became really the history of medicine. And for me, I really was, I knew I wanted to be a doctor,

but I was always fascinated by the culture, the religious influences, the societal influences on

science. And if you think about even just the COVID vaccine or COVID, nothing happens in a vacuum.

Science does not happen in a vacuum, but we can tend to think that it's this

objective pursuit of truth, which it's not. It's influenced by the people who have the seat at

the table, those who have the instruments, the tools, the power, the money, and the questions

that can be answered. And for me, I always was fascinated by women's health in particular.

I became a breast oncologist. And over time,

taking care of women, I really was overwhelmed by just the gaps in our health care. And I wanted to

understand them better. This was my way to do it. I've written two books, which is insane, because I'm

like, I'm like, do I even identify with the word author? But I have two under my belt.

So I feel I feel like I can be like, I understand it takes a lot of work to write a book.

But your book is fact after fact, after history, after story. Like this thing is packed with receipts.

Well, initially, when I thought I wanted to write, well, when I was talking to an agent, they thought, would you just want to write about breast health or breast cancer? And I said, absolutely not. I don't want to write the, here are the five things that you need to know, to optimize, like, that's been done. I really wanted to write an intellectual book that was accessible, that would show the things that I was learning by looking back at, you know, 17th century medical records or looking at an Egyptian mummy who had evidence

of urinary incontinence. How long have these embedded narratives been in women's health? So the book has

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