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Here you’ll find the latest things I’m thinking about and writing about. Sign up for the newsletter and you’ll get extended content straight to your inbox each month!
Can you turn back time?
f you’re a person with testicles you may have seen ads from online stores like UPGUYS and JACK.HEALTH promising that you can “turn back time” and “be The Guy again” by getting “your energy, muscle and love life back”
Messy & uncomfortable business
9 out of 10 colon cancers can be cured if they’re caught early, and in Canada we have a whole system in place to help you meet that goal.
Doctor Fail
Doctor Fail: The medication I can’t get my patients to take
Pain
People with pain, especially from marginalized groups, often feel dismissed by their care providers and indeed often leave the encounter without a plan for resolving their symptoms. I don’t have a solution to end gender bias across societies, but what I can offer is a framework for describing pain to your physician to help us accurately diagnose your issue.
D-score
German and Danish researchers have created a questionnaire to measure what they call “D” - a tendency to ruthlessly pursue one’s own interests, even when this harms others (or even for the sake of harming others), while having beliefs that justify these behaviours.
Menstruation is optional
As a young woman growing up in the 80s, I read that our monthly menses connected us to our ancestors and the earth. Embracing womanhood meant reveling in the monthly flow. As a science undergraduate student in the 90s, I realized that our ancient ancestors were either pregnant or lactating through most of their lives and wouldn’t have had periods anyway.
A vaccine, but for cancer
Cervical cancer is a vaccine-preventable disease. All of this worry, all of this pain, all of this death, is completely preventable with the HPV vaccine.
No More Paps.
Consent
School sex ed
Fear of the unknown or unfamiliar can make you act against your own guiding principles. This month everyone is talking about misinformation and school Sex Ed.
HSV
The good news is that herpes simplex virus will likely never make you sick. For the vast majority, the worst that might happen is a cold sore, either on your mouth or down below.
Hot Summer?
Are you heading into a hedonistic summer? The possibility of pregnancy or STIs can make sexual encounters risky. There are a few important methods of decreasing risk after an unprotected encounter.
What is Gender?
People get all mixed up about the differences between gender identity, sexual orientation, biological sex, and gender expression. They’re all very different but they’re all included in the LGBTQ2AI+ rainbow!
Skincare down there
Patients (and some physicians) think that genital hygiene products are useful but the reality is that the industry exploits a marketing strategy designed to turn shame and insecurity about sexuality into profit. Your crotch should smell like crotch - it’s healthier that way!
Birth Control Apps
Birth control? There’s an app for that! Not a good one, but the slick marketing campaign associated with the Natural Cycles app has persuaded hundreds of thousands of women worldwide to put their contraceptive trust entirely in the hands of an app.
Why buy lingerie?
We commonly associate romance on Valentine's Day with sexy lingerie. Why is lingerie so popular, or at least so popularized?
Smart, Savvy, Shameless MD.
How did I become a smart, savvy, shameless MD? It’s my superhero origin story, and my superpower is shamelessness.
Lichen Sclerosus
February 28 was Rare Diseases Day, and this year I was shocked to learn that Lichen Sclerosus is classified as a rare disease.
You’d never know it from my waiting room.
OAB
As I age, and my friends age, I hear a lot about bladder problems. The most common troublesome symptoms are frequent trips to the bathroom, especially at night, and occasionally not making it to the bathroom in time. Many people just think this is a part of getting older, but there are many treatment options for Overactive Bladder.
The medical information on this site is provided as an information resource only, and is not to be used or relied on for any diagnostic or treatment purposes. This information does not create any patient-physician relationship, and should not be used as a substitute for professional diagnosis and treatment.