What are Bioidentical Hormones? with Kate Wells

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:00:03 Hi and welcome to the Integrative Women’s Health Podcast. I’m your host, Doctor Jessica Drummond, and I am so thrilled to have you here as we dive into today’s episode. As always, innovating and integrating in the world of women’s health. And just as a reminder, the content in this podcast episode is no substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment from your medical or licensed health care team. While myself and many of my guests are licensed healthcare professionals, we are not your licensed healthcare professionals, so you want to get advice on your unique circumstances. Diagnostic recommendations treatment recommendations from your home medical team. Enjoy the episode. Let’s innovate and integrate together. Welcome back to the Integrative Women’s Health Podcast. I’m your host, Doctor Jessica Drummond. Today I had a lovely conversation and can’t wait to share it with you. I met with Kate Wells, who’s the founder of Parlor Games. They are a company that creates hormone creams across different hormones. We really dig into this episode the difference between topical estradiol, topical estradiol, topical DHEA, when and how practitioners should use these creams and recommend these creams.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:01:40 But more importantly, we took a little bit of a unique perspective because I know that so many people in our audience are running women’s health and wellness companies, maybe thinking about product creation, maybe thinking about how to integrate products into their service based businesses. And Kate, who has an MBA whose multiple decades of experience in business and an integrative health business. I really wanted to talk with her about what kinds of things she’s thinking about as she creates, build and run, runs businesses in these like later years. So she came to this business after her initial retirement, and she’s one of those people who’s really inspiring and may or may not ever retire. So thinking about the last 30 years for or 40 years of our lives with ourselves and with our clients in mid-life around like, what do we really want to do with this time? What kinds of businesses, what are the cultures of these businesses? How can we make sure they’re successful? But that financial success is not the only thing we’re focused on. And I really think she has some uniquely valuable insights here to help inspire you to create the kinds of things you want to create in midlife and well beyond.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:03:00 So tune in and we’ll chat on the other side about 1 or 2 things you can directly apply to your practice tomorrow. Hi and welcome back everyone. I am excited to introduce you today to Kate Wells. She is the founder of Parlor Games, and this company really was an innovator in this space and continues to be in the world of hormone therapies and hormone therapies that have greater reach to people who may have challenges with access, or even understanding when and why to use hormone therapy. So we’re going to get into a lot of the detail. But first, Kate, why did you start this company and what was the impetus in your life that led you in this direction.

Kate Wells 00:03:58 Anything that propels me is usually a result of me seeing, like, a gap, and often a gap in knowledge or access to something and having this earnest desire to help. I have a professional line of hormone creams and my best friend Kirsty, who is a co-founder. She reached out to me about six years ago and said, Kate, Kate, I’m having trouble with vaginal dryness and sex is starting to be painful and I don’t want that.

Kate Wells 00:04:30 You know, I’m only 50. This isn’t fair. This isn’t right. And I said, well, you have come to the right place because I happen to know all about atrial, which is one of the gentler of the estrogens, is really ideal for maintaining vaginal tissue, vaginal tone. So I got her going with some of that. And within two weeks, she’s on the phone like, Kate, this is amazing. This is great. What a difference this has made. And I mean, I’ve been going to medical conferences and educating practitioners for years, and I would often find myself in an exhibit hall surrounded by other exhibitors. Oftentimes they’re women. And I would have a group of them around me asking about hormones. And it was really clear to me over time that women really don’t have the information they need to understand what’s going on with their hormones, and then they hit sort of 55, 60, and all of a sudden when all of a sudden it’s kind of come on slowly, but, you know, their vaginas are starting to hurt, it’s starting to be painful.

Kate Wells 00:05:36 And women are hungry for information. So I knew this demand was there were not being served by practitioners. And so I cajoled Kirsti into starting parlor games. I knew this demand was here. My experience is all B2B. I’ve been in the integrative medicine world for years. I don’t have the front facing customer side of it, and she does. She’s a serial entrepreneur and she has the tech side. She understands the marketing to customer side. And so eventually I did. I cajoled her into starting parlor games. And our flagship product, vaginal estrogen, is really what God is going.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:06:16 So what were you doing before that and when did you start this company?

Kate Wells 00:06:20 I have had a long career, as I mentioned, in integrative medicine. I was the CEO and president of clinical services for a long time. That is a salivary hormone testing laboratory. And so we would go to events and we would educate practitioners. And so I am a businesswoman. I have an MBA. I love the business process. I am a businesswoman through and through.

Kate Wells 00:06:46 And I also fell in love with this biochemistry, you know, at these medical conferences, I wouldn’t just sit at the booth and just watch the the crowds go by. I was in there, I was listening to the presentations, and we had a team of staff physicians who would coach our practitioners on how to use salivary hormone testing for their patients. I would listen, I absorb it, I would, you know, I just could not get enough of this information. When that company, which I’m still in contact with the team, they’re like nine years later when that was purchased by another lab doctors data, I took the opportunity to step away from that. And I went to do some product development with Caci Clinical Laboratories, which is a genetics testing laboratory. And that was just like this whole new realm of biochemistry was tied to genetics and did product development there for a couple of years. And I just again fell in love all over again with genetics and then decided to retire, Or at least attempt to retire.

Kate Wells 00:07:55 And that did not go very well. And anyone who knows me is like, I don’t think you’re ever going to retire. Doesn’t matter how many times you try, you’re probably not going to be successful at that. And so as I was kicking around thinking, all right, what am I going to do next? This is where the ideas for polygons began to surface. And I went through this. What, for me, was just an utterly painful phase of waiting, knowing that something was coming. But I wasn’t there yet. And I’m a woman of action. I am happiest when I’ve got a list to work my way through, or some papers to read or something like that. I knew something was coming and I just had to endure the inaction phase. And then, of course, when Kirstie and I got going on this five years ago. So 2020, I know how to start a business during a pandemic.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:08:54 I get that.

Kate Wells 00:08:56 Finally, it was like, oh, the gears are starting to kick in, the cogs are whirring and I will tell you, Jessica, it has been nonstop since then.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:09:09 Well that’s good. I think there are certainly a subpopulation of women who are like, ready to retire early. They have other goals, different kinds of goals. But I think one of the things that’s so interesting about the menopause conversation that we’re having now, and I think you’re just a living example of this, is that a lot of women at 55, 65, 75 even don’t want to retire or can’t. I mean, that’s sometimes a real financial reality, given that we talk so much about longevity and healthspan in our work. Our longevity certificate program talks a lot about essentially the 50s being the adolescence of old age, if you will. So you almost have a second opportunity to create 30 to 40 years of life for yourself if you’re taking care of your health. And of course, anything can happen to anyone at any time. But, you know, just reasonably, it makes sense that you could have a different career, an expansion of your career. You can do something totally different. I was volunteering with habitat for humanity a couple of weeks ago, and they have a woman there who comes twice a week, every week.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:10:25 She’s 80 years old. She knows how to use all the tools, all the machines. She’ll do anything but paint. So she has a very active retirement. And I think that your example is that you had a little space of incubation, of curiosity, of what’s needed in the marketplace. And we just now, about a week ago, have new guidelines from OGS about genitourinary syndrome of menopause, and that DHEA and vaginal estrogen are first line therapies, whether women are 85 100 because it’s so preventative for UTI and falls and fractures related to that. But this was something you’ve been really working on for almost a decade, being one of the first to launch a product in this space. How is that different than coming later when there’s more conversation and more research? You know, how do you make a decision about what kind of estrogen to use, how to market it? Like, how are you thinking about those things when you’re one of the earliest to market with this tool?

Kate Wells 00:11:37 Well, actually, that’s possibly a better question for Kirsti, my co-founder, my business partner, because she was in charge of all the marketing.

Kate Wells 00:11:44 I just put all the science together and wrote a lot of blogs which one of our team members made a little bit more sassy because I can get a little bit dry. I’m used to talking to practitioners, you know, like, here’s the science, here’s, you know, how you play in a clinical environment, blah, blah, blah. We had to sassy that up a bit. But I know the steps that we went through, you know, like any business can do these days, you know, you we advertise on Facebook. We had to do a lot of work to experiment. What are the phrases that women will go, oh, that’s me click, you know, because they’re curious and they want to know more. I mean, we laugh here a lot and I can quickly go to Nerd Space. And one of the brilliant things that Kirstie did is she decided that we were going to laugh, we were going to have fun with this. And one of our best performing ads is get the fun back in your lady bits.

Kate Wells 00:12:38 Five years ago, we couldn’t say vagina on any social media, so we had to have all these euphemisms and and our customers used to tell us off, like use the proper word like we would want to, but we can’t. Yes, yes, we really want to. We’re all adults here.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:12:56 Yeah. That’s always a challenge when you’re marketing women’s health. Like the algorithms change their mind every other week about what words you’re allowed to say.

Kate Wells 00:13:04 Yeah, right. So yes, we were groundbreaking and we decided early on, yes, we were going to be sassy with this. And we’re going to have fun with this. And everything we did is rooted in science. So we really wanted to set the bar for accessing sound information. So every article we write, all our blogs, I know we have 140 or something at this point. They’re grounded in the scientific literature. So when women are looking for information, trying to work out what’s going on, they can come to our website and know it’s solid information.

Kate Wells 00:13:42 And so that kind of foundation principle, I think has helped us be successful. And plus, we have a community. One of the things that we recognized really early on was how lonely women were with this issue of vaginal dryness, genitourinary health in general incontinence. And we have a Facebook community for our customers where, I mean, this is no holds barred. At this point, there’s nothing we have not heard, but it is a safe space for women to share what’s going on, to receive affirmation and receive feedback, and to know that they are not alone and that there are solutions. And so a big part of what we wanted was to to give women hope. And so as new players have come into this, there’s two things that go on in my mind. And a lot of my work in the last five years has been about gently my ego telling you to go sit in the corner like you do not belong here. Be quiet. And so there’s two things happens when I see another entrance, I’m like, this is my space.

Kate Wells 00:14:47 And then after, like, no, it’s not. You are starting something. And everyone that comes into this space. As a result of this growing information is contributing to women’s health, to making a difference for women, to giving them hope, to giving them choices. That’s what this is about.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:15:11 Yeah. One of the reasons I think it might be maybe easier to do that when you’re in this kind of second or even third phase of your career, is you’ve seen that businesses messy. Sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it’s competitive. Sometimes things change. And I really like how you and your colleague and your friend went into this with a real mission towards keeping the work itself joyful. Because I think that will obviously bleed into your clients, into your community. It’s a part of what could set your company apart as there are different kinds of competitors. You were mentioning a little bit before we started how you’ve been learning in conferences about how other company cultures are talking about grounding themselves in the labyrinth, but really grounding and pleasure and joy and female friendship and connection seem to be real themes of your entire company.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:16:18 How do you sustain that as your company grows?

Kate Wells 00:16:22 So as a professional businesswoman, I’ve had the chance to try and create positive workplaces. You know, when it’s for someone else, there’s only so much you can do. So when we started parlor games, we were really clear that we never wanted to create an environment where women could not be themselves. You know, we have some employment practices that are pretty experimental. 30 hours is our full time workweek, and we do employ a lot of women, and they are often juggling family demands. And so our principle is all right, work hard for those 30 hours. But then when you’re done, you’re done. Go and live the rest of your life. And we train our employees. It’s very sequential. It’s very structured. If we’ve got like a really sharp cookie, you know, they go right through that really quickly. But someone needs to take a little more time to absorb and reiterate and learn. That’s fine too. Success is not a point.

Kate Wells 00:17:25 It is a continuum. We try and meet our team members where they are. I mean, we have smart women. I will say we do. We do start off stacking the deck, and we also hire women with a sense of humor. You know, we put it in the job description, like, must have a sense of humor and not be able to take yourself too seriously. I take the work seriously, but not yourself. So as we bring people on, we do try and inculcate that sense of. This is a group of women turning up to make a difference in other women’s lives, and we attract the people who want to do that. It’s funny you asked that question. I was on the phone with another dear friend last night. 62. She’s launching into another one of her careers, and we were talking about how do you maintain culture as an organisation grows and we are growing. And it starts with who you hire and that screening process and staying true to that, not letting it fray around the edges now and again.

Kate Wells 00:18:26 I mean, I’ve made one, one kind of dodgy hiring hiring mistake, but out of many, I think we’ve got a pretty good track record. And because we look for someone who has a can do attitude, sometimes a good sense of humor, someone who’s smart and somebody who wants to make a difference. And that’s pretty much what our culture is. And so that’s who we look for.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:18:48 So and it’s reflected in kind of how you design your product. So for example, it seems like your flagship product is your vaginal estradiol cream, which I forget the name of it, but it’s like peach.

Kate Wells 00:19:03 Silky peach cream. Yes.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:19:04 Silky peach cream. Yes. So there’s a playfulness to that, which is really nice. So let’s talk a little bit about the science for all of our women’s health nerds out there, just like me. You know, we know, as I said, the latest guidelines just published in the last week or so talk a lot about vaginal estradiol and its safety and its efficacy for general urinary syndrome of menopause.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:19:33 And, you know, we know even in postpartum there there are transient times of vaginal dryness that can also happen in, you know, and during cancer therapies and hormone suppression for any reason medically. Why did you choose estrogen and have you thought about adding or shifting to DHEA or estradiol? You know, is there some reason that you utilize that formulation?

Kate Wells 00:20:02 Yeah, very much so. That goes back to, you know, one of the dreams that I have is that a company like ours doesn’t need to exist, because every woman has access to a practitioner who understands her hormones, monitors her hormones, helps her with her hormones, make sure that for her entire lifespan, she has sufficient hormones and they’re balanced. We’re not there yet.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:20:24 Know for sure? We have a ways to go.

Kate Wells 00:20:27 That was the end of statement of the century. And there’s also that principle. First, do no harm. I mean, we’re not clinicians very clear about that, but we do not want to do any harm. And we know that there’s also a lot of miscommunication and misunderstanding about the importance of estradiol and estrogen and its links to breast cancer, and how there is some still very confusing messaging.

Kate Wells 00:20:52 The big one being estrogen causes cancer, which is nonsense, but we are dealing with a lag of that information that sort of began to surface about 20 years ago or so. So we want women to feel comfortable using an estrogen. And there are consistent studies that show that estradiol, the weaker of the estrogens, is excellent for maintaining vaginal tissue, for handling all of those symptoms. There are also studies show that up to 97% will be absorbed and used locally. It does not become systemic. Now we know hearing from some of our customers that some of it does begin to circulate systemically because they feel its impact elsewhere. But it has such a great safety profile that this is such a good way to go. Now, for someone who has been dealing with these symptoms for a long time. You know, five years, ten years, 20 years. Low dose trial may take too long to really have that clinical effect. And in that circumstance, going straight to DHEA or straight to estradiol could be really well indicated.

Kate Wells 00:22:09 However, we know that DHEA, it can have its downstream effects, it can convert to testosterone. And if for some reason someone is not balancing with progesterone that testosterone, some of that will be converted to DHT. If you have elevated testosterone and elevated DHT and it’s not balanced by progesterone, you’re going to increase hair loss. And no one’s going to love us if everybody’s hair falls out. So understanding that hormone cascade is critical in using hormones. And for the vast majority of our customers, they don’t have access to someone who’s going to test the hormone and see what they’re doing, look at their blood sugar levels, know whether this is someone who is going to be a candidate for DHEA, for example, where you might have that elevated androgen profile. So it was that. What effect can we help women without increasing their potential for other side effects elsewhere? Estradiol is a more potent estrogen. And so of course you want that balanced with progesterone. The two are two sides of a teeter totter. You have to have them both.

Kate Wells 00:23:16 And getting many women from that step from Isreal for this painful issue that they are going to act on to using progesterone, which doesn’t seem to have a painful issue that makes them act. It’s different now. You know, someone working with a practitioner, They get that conversation and the practitioner explains all of that. You know, our blogs do that and our emails do that. And yet most people who find us are acting because they are in pain and they want a solution and there aren’t pains. Wanting solutions with progesterone, it’s a different kind of hormone, has a different kind of effect. You know, we know it’s important for all its functions within the body, but encapsulating that in a succinct message that gets people to go, oh, I need that is harder than if they’re physically in pain. So that’s where we started. Now we do have a progesterone, a vibrant third progesterone, and we do have a DHEA. And we are careful about how we present that information. Again, it’s going to come back to yeah we’re not clinicians but I don’t want to do any harm.

Kate Wells 00:24:28 You know, someone who is in their 40s probably makes adequate DHEA. We don’t really want women coming into that space until 55 plus. And so that’s one of our parameters that we put on there. Totally different. If you’re working with a practitioner who’s testing their hormones and has all this other information.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:24:48 Yeah, I think that’s a really good point, because when we talk about products that are over-the-counter, whether it’s topical hormones, supplements, you know, even functional foods, things like that, that people can access, direct consumer, even things like Tylenol or Advil, like, I think it’s very important that when people access these things, because they can do them directly, that do no harm principle is very important and the educational source of your site. And I think this is one of those things that we could argue against it happening at all. Right, that practitioners should be gatekeepers. I don’t agree with that. I think that by and large, individuals increasingly are going to be their own provider, if you will.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:25:41 Not to say that there’s not a place for providers. I think there’s a very strong. Place for providers and coaches and providers that have coaching skills in particular. Because you’re exactly right. There’s a lot of depth of layers of education when it comes to healthcare and self healthcare, if you will. But it’s very clear to me that in the very near term, certainly within the next decade, there’s going to be an explosion of education and access to AI tools, for example, that kind of give people the checklist of what kinds of tools are good for them. But then the implementation, the safety profiles, the combinations of tools that maybe are, like you said, like if we’re having too much estrogen without enough progesterone. Even if the person doesn’t really see they need progesterone. Like that’s when you get in trouble with certain things. And so there is a pretty big barrier of education that when we’re providing a tool over the counter with direct consumer marketing, whether it’s a over-the-counter medication supplement cream, even things like skin care, because some of them have endocrine disruptors in them.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:27:04 That educational piece and helping people make decisions that are the least complex is, I think, a really important thing to think about. For anyone listening who’s thinking about creating a product business or even educating your clients on how to use different products and how to choose among different products, because there is a real jump for people who maybe, you know, you and I are deeply immersed in this space, so certain things feel obvious, but for others it can be really confusing. So I think that’s a very safety conscious approach. You know, efficacy is important, but with direct consumer, I think safety is even more important.

Kate Wells 00:27:50 Right, right. I completed a fellowship in herbal medicine, and apart from all the glorious information that was in there about options and tools and solutions, one of the things that I took away from it that really just keeps me really focused is contraindications. There are, you know, horror stories of people who have tried this and they try that and they think, you know, copper is important for this and they’ve got to get some iron in.

Kate Wells 00:28:19 And then, you know, they’ve got to get some valerian in for this and that and this, that and the other. And before you know it, you really disrupted many of the natural pathways in the body which have downstream consequences. And oftentimes if someone has gone down that path, you’ve got to stop everything to allow the body to reset. And then he’s back in. But oftentimes if it’s got that complex and it’s that, it’s that, you know, you know, convoluted, a practitioner is going to be needed to help someone when they have gone down that pathway.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:28:54 Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Kate Wells 00:28:56 I’m really, really excited to always run into practitioners who are, you know, they’re not MDS. They’re not NDEs. They’re not nurse practitioners. I don’t know a lot of chiropractors who really understand integrative medicine, you know, and practice that. I think some of the smartest people I know are some of the nutritionists, because there is so much complexity to nutrition and using that functionally because your NDEs, oh my goodness, their biochemistry knowledge is just fabulous.

Kate Wells 00:29:30 So I think it’s exciting that there are a growing number of practitioners who are able to be super helpful to people in this field, and without some of the constraints that there are in established medicine, should we just call it that? Where there are standards of care and there are rules and you get 5.5 minutes if you’re lucky. Those systems are built for acute care, and this country is pretty good at acute care, but not with the chronic stuff. And that’s where some of these really clever, thoughtful practitioners come into that space to really help people. And whether it is unwinding something complex or it’s just finding a little leverage point with something that just makes a difference. So I’m pretty excited that you have you have this group of practitioners who, who, who are this, this coterie of awesomeness? I would just say.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:30:23 They are absolutely one of the things I think is really powerful about the product line that you’ve created, and particularly the Volver trial, is that we work with a lot of pelvic, physical and occupational therapists, like you said, nutritionists who are experts in biochemistry, naturopaths, gynecologists, even.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:30:44 And sometimes, for example, the gynecologist may be working with a very complex client, someone who maybe has mcats or something where they’re very sensitive to anything. I have MCAS clients, mast cell activation syndrome clients who are sensitive or allergic to the medications for mast cell activation syndrome. So that can be complicated. And I think so even the highest, most trained professionals, such as gynecologists in this area, having a wider suite of options because maybe their first line therapy based on evidence based guidelines is, say, topical estradiol. But in the standard preparations which may be most accessible may be less expensive, whatever. There are things that that person’s allergic to and they can’t tolerate it, and it actually makes their symptoms worse. To have other options that are in different base mediums that may be gentler. You know, sometimes people that have had this, as you said, maybe they’ve had this for a decade before anyone really started to address it. That would be not at all uncommon. I mean, sometimes two decades, especially after the Women’s Health Initiative really shut down any prescription of estrogen, you sometimes have to start low so the person can even tolerate it for a while.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:32:07 And then for practitioners who are seeing a lot of vulvas like pelvic and OTS, they do have that chemistry and biochemistry training to be able to help patients really get that next level of education. So what is the difference between essentially compounded Estradiol or atrial with standard prescriptions of estrogen, estradiol, or even compounded estradiol and DHEA in a standard preparation or compounded like. Why would people use these different things? They’re working with vulvar pain all day long, and them understanding why we might choose a very mild preparation that’s over the counter could make a big difference to people with vulvodynia, vulvar pain, menopausal dryness. And I’ve even started some of my clients because I seem to work with the sensitive of the sensitive group, which unfortunately, at times I’ve known myself. You know, my body has been that person, so it’s a good way to learn. Not recommended. But you do learn, right? And sometimes it’s like we maybe can’t even put it on the vulva. We have to start on the inner thigh or, you know, just get the body used to it.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:33:27 So I think having a range of options that clinicians and providers understand, they can be part of that educational hurdle and leap for patients.

Kate Wells 00:33:41 The other piece that plays into this is we know that health care carries cost, and wellness care is usually its own cost and reimbursable. And so, you know, for something like, you know, maintaining vulvar health, that’s a lifetime thing. You know, we get the question, well, how long do I have to use it? You know, my response is often, well, how long do you want to be able to pee comfortably for me, which is like five minutes before I keel over. So the affordability for people who are on fixed incomes, who don’t have deep pockets and can afford to just pay for stuff. There are a lot of people in that category. And so having affordable options is also a piece of it. Someone may be making the choice to spend the money to work with a physical therapist, and that could be absorbing all their spare cash.

Kate Wells 00:34:31 And so the resources to help products to help, you know, those need to be affordable. So that’s another piece. You know, when I think about where we are now, you know, we’ve been selling our products for four and a half years now. Friends and people will say, well, was this your vision to be the size? Like absolutely not. We just thought this is important. Let’s go for it. You know, we both have a lot of business experience. And so we were drawing on that. We never set off with these huge goals, financial goals or anything like that. It was just to help. And what we’re finding is that so many people do need help. And so we’re just part of the mix of all the resources that people are trying to access to find help. So.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:35:22 Yeah, absolutely. I really appreciate you sharing the entire journey. Some of the clinical decisions that you made, based on your scientific background and your herbalism background, and wanting to really take that approach of caution combined with effectiveness.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:35:40 Anything else you want to share before we wrap up?

Kate Wells 00:35:44 I feel incredibly fortunate. It’s more than fortunate. I hesitate to use the term blessed, but it’s in that kind of category to be able to do what is my mission work. It turns out this is what I am on the earth to do. And I would just say, for, you know, your audience who is listening. Anytime you feel yourself flailing and thinking, oh God, am I doing the right thing? All right. Just like, get still and think about that bigger mission. See if you can tap into what it feels like in your heart to be doing the right work, doing the right thing in the right place at the right time. And if you can find that, it can be transformative. So being a clinician and also being a businesswoman can be hard. It’s two conflicting sets of knowledge I think, you know, being able to link the two with heart can really be transformative because you get to the your inner yeses on things as well as your inner knows.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:36:46 Yeah, what not to do is sometimes more important than what to do.

Kate Wells 00:36:51 Indeed.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:36:54 Thank you so much, Kate. This has been an absolute delight. I appreciate the work and dedication that you’ve put into your products, and really thinking about their quality and their affordability and their accessibility and all really stemming from a desire to help your friend and then taking that joyful energy and the wisdom of your decades of business experience and applying it to something really, really important and underserved. So thank you for the work that you do.

Kate Wells 00:37:24 Thank you for your time and also for the work that you are doing. You know, there are connectors in this world that are so critical. You know, people who connect others and people who connect others with information. And what you’re doing is playing a really important role. And so when I just want to notice and honor that in you too. Thank you.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:37:49 Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I love that conversation because I think Kate really has an important perspective on her work life now that she is sort of come back after her initial retirement and, you know, created a really unique business with her friend in a space that’s growing.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:38:16 But, you know, they were one of the earliest entrants, you know, almost a decade ago, thinking about hormone therapies being more accessible and more affordable. Understanding that there are huge gaps in people’s access to health care, and thinking about the safety versus efficacy conversation. You know, when do we emphasize one or the other? How do practitioners fit in? Where should practitioners fit in when it comes to product education and recommendation? So I really think this is a valuable conversation. If we’re thinking about our own businesses and practices to stay centered in two key things. Number one, what do our clients need to be successful in the simplest possible, safest possible way? Let’s not overcomplicate everything. And number two, how can we keep the culture of our work even if we’re a one person solopreneur or working a large hospital organization. How can we keep the culture of our work life? Grounded in our own values, whether it’s joy and laughter? Like Kate and her friend and colleague have done. Whether it’s a particular mission, whether it’s just, you know, about showing up, pushing the ball forward to keep supporting something that you believe in deeply.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:39:47 It’s that little day by day, incremental perspective and inspiration for your work. If you start feeling like your work is just overwhelming. You’re not really sure what you’re doing this for. You’re feeling burned out. Take a little space. Take a couple days off and take a moment. Think about right now, in this present moment, right now, in this year, in this quarter, what is your work for? Who is it for and what does it mean to you? And then what’s the energy you want to bring to that work? Is it around joy? Is it around laughter? Is it around goofiness? Is it around commitment? Is it around being driven, motivated? Like what does that look like for you that makes it feel really fun? Then you’re doing exactly the right thing in this moment. I’ll see you next week. Thank you so much for joining me today for this episode of the Integrative Women’s Health Podcast. Please share this episode with a colleague and if you loved it, hit that subscribe or follow button on your favorite podcast streaming service so that we can do even more to make this podcast better for you and your clients.

Dr. Jessica Drummond 00:41:09 Let’s innovate and integrate in the world of women’s health.