Episode 58
How a Young Med Student Founded a Movement in Sexual Medicine | Dr.Jen Romanello
Sexual health is often misunderstood and neglected in medical training. What happens when a passionate student decides to challenge the system and ignite change?
The medical field often hesitates to tackle less-explored topics, but Dr. Jen Romanello is breaking new ground as a young advocate for advancing sexual medicine.As a medical student, Jen identified a glaring gap in education on female sexual health and decided to act. She founded the Medical Student Forum on Female Sexual Medicine, an initiative that has expanded to impact students across the U.S. and beyond.
In this episode, we delve into Jen’s journey from medical student to resident, exploring her mission to tackle the stigma surrounding sexual health in medical education. From collaborating with leading experts like Dr. Rachel Rubin and Dr. Andrew Goldstein to hosting groundbreaking symposiums, Jen has made waves in an underserved area of healthcare.
We also explore the challenges of navigating medical systems that often overlook sexual medicine and how Jen’s leadership is paving the way for students, clinicians, and patients alike. Whether it’s addressing medical trauma or fostering a deeper understanding of patient care, Jen’s work highlights the importance of multidisciplinary collaboration and a patient-first approach.
Her insights go beyond the clinic, offering practical advice for medical students, residents, and professionals interested in bridging gaps in education and care.
Join us for an inspiring conversation that showcases how one person’s determination can spark systemic change and improve countless lives.
Don’t miss this eye-opening episode. If you enjoyed the conversation, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your network to spread awareness about the importance of sexual medicine. Your feedback helps us continue these critical discussions!
Dr. Romanello’s Bio:
Jen Romanello MD is an intern physician in internal medicine at NYU and attended medical school at Rush Medical College in Chicago. She is President of the Medical Student Forum on Female Sexual Medicine (The Forum), which she founded in 2020. The Forum is an independent trainee-led organization that has facilitated over 1000 trainees to connect to educational, writing, research, conference, and mentorship opportunities in the field of Female Sexual Medicine (FSM).
Her professional interests include sexual medicine and menopause, reproductive mental health, neuroplastic pain, metabolism and nutrition, and lifestyle medicine. Her clinical research and publications have focused on topics including clitoral adhesions,chronic pelvic pain, and medical education.
She is a member of the International Society for the Study of Women's Sexual Health, the Menopause Society, and the Association for the Treatment of Neuroplastic Symptoms. She loves speaking with medical students who are deciding which specialty to pursue about how there are many great ways to approach this field.
Don’t miss this eye-opening episode. If you enjoyed the conversation, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your network to spread awareness about the importance of sexual medicine. Your feedback helps us continue these critical discussions!
Get in Touch with Dr. Romanello:
Get in Touch with Dr. Rahman:
Transcript
Dr Sameena Rahman (0:0.153)
do that because Carrie is very thoughtful about editing stuff out so you can easily do that.
Jen Romanello (0:4.942)
Okay, and then is the video also gonna be put anywhere?
Dr Sameena Rahman (0:7.697)
That's up to you. like I she does about, you know, I think two or three videos a month she'll post on my YouTube channel. But they're not usually like she's I think she's like on like from last year trying to get some of the ones because some of some of the people opt not to do video. So it's just audio. The audio will be the first thing that goes the video might be a few months away.
Jen Romanello (0:15.630)
Mm-hmm.
Jen Romanello (0:25.496)
Mmm.
Jen Romanello (0:29.876)
Okay, should I put doctor in front of my name? Okay, but just obviously just call me Jen on this.
Dr Sameena Rahman (0:31.953)
Yes, oh yes, please do. yeah. And you cannot, you know, you're, you're, can call me Samina now.
Jen Romanello (0:42.920)
On your podcast though? Thank you though.
Dr Sameena Rahman (0:44.245)
Oh, I mean, whatever, you know, yeah, totally. It's fine. right, so I think we'll get started. Hey, y'all, it's me, Dr. Samina Raman, Gyno Girl. Excited for a special guest I have for you guys today on Gyno Girl Presents Sex, Drugs, and Hormones. I'm Dr. Samina Raman, Gyno Girl, here for you. Please like and subscribe to my channel.
Jen Romanello (0:48.707)
Thank you.
Dr Sameena Rahman (1:12.035)
And you guys heard my intro. I have a special guest who is near and dear to me because she's done so many amazing things. I'm so proud of her. You guys know I love to mentor students, but she's been great. I'm gonna, without further ado, introduce you to, and I've been trying to do the Oprah intro. It's Dr. Jen Romanello. Everybody, years now, right?
Jen Romanello (1:32.907)
Oh, I love Oprah.
Jen Romanello (1:36.974)
Thank you so much for having me. And we've known each other, yeah, for about four years now.
Dr Sameena Rahman (1:42.097)
Well, it probably since she started the thing, since she started the forum.
Jen Romanello (1:45.686)
Yes, which is about five, and you were in our first symposium. You were speaker at our first two.
Dr Sameena Rahman (1:49.433)
Yes. Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. I mean, you know, you guys know that listen to me, like I teach a lot of students like both from Northwestern and internationally and people rotate with me all the time and students are always so great to have to like really sort of mentor into the next generation of clinicians who are going to be taking care of patients. But it's always nice to meet a student that is like so motivated to really change things, you know, and I think that
That was what struck me when I met Jen was like, wow, like, you know, she wanted to change something and she did it because you guys know that, listen, like, you know, that we always talk about how none of us got any training in sex med or menopause. And of course the reality is like, there wasn't as much known. Hold on, I'm gonna boost somebody. Just edit that out, carry on. You know, of course the reality is like, you know, the research in the last 15, 20 years has been great and we have more ways to treat patients for sexual concerns, but.
you know, it wasn't anything that we ever really properly learned or was researched enough to convey that to us. And so now that we have more research, more processes of care through Ishwish, you know, we have, you know, students who are hungry to learn. So first, I want Jen to tell us, you know, she's now an intern, so she started her residency. She's no longer a medical student, but what I meant was she was. I want you to talk to us a little bit about what inspired you
Jen Romanello (3:10.808)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Sameena Rahman (3:17.205)
As you guys heard, she was like really the starter of this amazing group that's come out of Chicago, the forum on female sexual medicine for medical students that's now really expanded and doing more research. And we have students coming with us to Ishwish all the time presenting data. And it really was sort of started because of your vision. feel like, you know, I mean, obviously you can tell us all the students and what they say to you because there's so much interest, but
Jen Romanello (3:39.182)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Sameena Rahman (3:46.529)
I need everyone to know like what was it that inspired you to do this and how did you do it? Because like even for students listening, like how do you go about like you have an idea, how do you make it come to fruition? So yeah, Jen, us.
Jen Romanello (4:3.352)
So I had a vision of having students learn about female sexual medicine and we could learn from each other, but also like we're, at the time when I was a medical student, we were all students, so bringing in a lot of experts. And luckily we've had so many supportive advisors. Dr. Raman is one of them.
And there was so much excitement from the beginning. So getting a team together was the first step and was really important. And it's so crucial to have like the right team members as well. So we have done about over 20 events to date of like lectures or panels, discussions. And then we have our fifth annual symposiums featuring leaders in the field where Dr. Raman was our speaker, the first two of them.
Dr Sameena Rahman (4:28.945)
Great.
Jen Romanello (4:51.936)
We have also attended about five conferences presenting our original research. So we also do our own internal research looking at medical school curriculum. And I know that you have even talked to Northwestern students about the results of that on our curriculum review.
Dr Sameena Rahman (4:58.929)
you
Dr Sameena Rahman (5:9.497)
Yeah, I just did my lecture on Thursday actually and I posted your results. Yeah, so it's a yearly lecture for the repro club for the second year repro course or whatever. So I teach the sex med 101 and I always start with water and medical students learning and I was like, this is what we know, which you can actually talk about a little bit if you want like, because that was one of the studies that you guys did. But before you talk about that, can you tell me like
Jen Romanello (5:12.458)
Oh, so recent!
Jen Romanello (5:28.278)
Yes.
Dr Sameena Rahman (5:34.147)
You've told me before but I just wanted to know like have the people listen like why did you want to look like what was it about sex med or what brought you to this like Juncture in your life where you thought hey, I really wish I knew more about it You know, did you struggle over yourself? Like if you don't mind talking about that
Jen Romanello (5:46.872)
Mm-hmm.
Jen Romanello (5:50.786)
Yeah, so I was in between college and medical school and I met Dr. Rubin. So I was a volunteer in events at Planned Parenthood at the time and I saw this episode on Netflix, Explained, episode Female Orgasm and there was so much I didn't know about it so I created a panel and screened the documentary and Dr. Rubin was there. And so she said I could shadow her and this was a few months before starting medical school and I just
Dr Sameena Rahman (5:58.790)
Yes.
Dr Sameena Rahman (6:4.401)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Sameena Rahman (6:13.011)
Yeah
Jen Romanello (6:20.878)
could see how so many patients were going from doctor to doctor, like with pelvic pain, for example, their pain was not being believed. And that Dr. Rubin or doctors practicing this could have such a big impact with the skills that they had because the patients weren't getting it from elsewhere and that really was not okay. So that was really the inciting moment for me that there are things that we can do and patients just are not
Dr Sameena Rahman (6:36.644)
Absolutely. Right.
Dr Sameena Rahman (6:41.680)
Right.
Jen Romanello (6:50.508)
getting connected to the right people and the education is not out there and that's a lot of the issue.
Dr Sameena Rahman (6:56.975)
Right, exactly. And I think that was, that's wonderful. And you guys have heard me talk about my friend and colleague, Rachel Rubin before. And, you know, she obviously trained with Irwin Goldstein and I've had the Goldsteins on the podcast. so, they're, but I think that, you know, that's so critical and to find that need and really act on it. you know, so then you decided this is what you wanted to do. You wanted to figure out a way to get more students.
Jen Romanello (7:10.510)
That was a great episode.
Dr Sameena Rahman (7:26.587)
So that these, so ultimately we're trying not to get patients to go through seven or eight clinicians at a time to try to find the right person. There's a lot of
Jen Romanello (7:32.724)
Exactly. It was in the medical trauma. Yeah. Yes. And so I moved to Chicago for med school connected with Dr. Stryker at Northwestern. So all three of you are our advisors along with Dr. Mary Lynn at Loyola. And then talking with Dr. Stryker, she was the initial advisor, the
the group first came about and it actually was during COVID. So the timing worked out really well when people were starting to use Zoom. So it was very easy to collaborate, get people from a lot of schools involved. Initially it was just the seven Chicago med schools. Now, of course, it's also in New York, cause I'm here and people at students, students at schools across the country and even some abroad have attended our events and we have a new membership category as well.
Dr Sameena Rahman (8:2.329)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Sameena Rahman (8:17.679)
Yeah.
Dr Sameena Rahman (8:22.980)
Yeah, think the great thing is like, I mean, anybody can really log in because it is still a virtual event. And I think, you know, I know that you guys do some like, we do in person things together, but the fact that, you know, you kind of worked with, and how did you get the word out to other students? Or how did that work? Like, how did you eventually do that?
Jen Romanello (8:44.536)
So initially it was really just finding, like for example, OBGYN interest groups at Loyola, Northwestern, New Chicago, and those email addresses often would be online, or if they weren't, reaching out to someone who might know, and then passing along the info to our application and our first event. And there was a lot of interest, and people were home during COVID, so the word spread, and people were talking about it. And the first year we had members on our board from all seven.
Dr Sameena Rahman (8:51.217)
Yeah.
Dr Sameena Rahman (8:57.637)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Sameena Rahman (9:9.167)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jen Romanello (9:13.888)
schools that was really word of mouth.
Dr Sameena Rahman (9:15.957)
Yeah, oh that's great. And now is it, because you guys rotate like every two years, they're full board members? great. And how do you come up with the various topics? I know you work with advisors and stuff like that, is it just sort of what, I mean obviously most, especially in the beginning it was like stuff that nobody was being taught.
Jen Romanello (9:26.174)
About every year or if people want to stay on, yeah.
Jen Romanello (9:43.938)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Sameena Rahman (9:44.599)
Because this year, if you want to talk about, think is a very interesting topic that you guys brought together with some great speakers.
Jen Romanello (9:52.128)
Yes. So for our events, like we our first event ever was with Dr. Stryker, just a female sexual medicine 101. And we also have had like a talk with you on ethics and medical considerations for labia plasces. And then Dr. Rubin a few times has given a lecture on pathophysiology and pathology of female orgasm and the clitoris. And then also
Dr Sameena Rahman (10:1.820)
Yeah.
Dr Sameena Rahman (10:9.617)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Mm-hmm.
Jen Romanello (:topics like female genital mutilation, pelvic pain.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:I don't know why they let my disc go in there.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:my door. Sorry, Carrie, you can exit that one out. Okay.
Jen Romanello (:Ha ha.
Jen Romanello (:Okay, I'll start now. Okay. Or actually, I'll go back to the different lectures we've had, because I don't know where the dog... Okay. So we've had lectures on all different topics. Our first one was a female sexual medicine, just 101 lecture with Dr. Stryker, and then Dr. Rubin has hosted a few times pathology and pathophysiology of female orgasm and the clitoris.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Mm-hmm.
Jen Romanello (11:8.342)
And then we've had you talk about ethical and medical considerations of labiaplasis. And then even more niche topics. Actually, I don't want to delete that. Or even topics such as female genital mutilation or pelvic pain. And then for our fifth annual symposium this year, the theme, because every year we have a theme, is sexual health and medicine across diverse patient populations. Hold on one second.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah. Right.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:She's just getting over whatever whatever's been going around
Jen Romanello (:Yes, thank you.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Okay. Yeah, Yeah, absolutely. Okay.
Jen Romanello (:Yes, okay, Carrie, please cut that out. I need to meet Carrie eventually. Keep talking to her. So for our symposium, we're gonna have Dr. Andrew Goldstein talk about sexual health in a global context. Dr. Tracy Kurtzer talk about trauma-informed care for patients experiencing human trafficking. Maria Oloko talking about advancing sexual health equity for women of color. Dr. Diana Tordoff.
talking about pelvic pain among transgender individuals. And then Dr. Stryker talking about demystifying sexual medicine in menopausal patients. And then Dr. Rubin is our moderator this year. And it's actually a week from today, next Sunday, January 26.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah, and I don't know when this will post so it might be retrospective. Is it available? is it going to be available post or not? Like are you recording it? So that people can access it potentially. Okay. So, um, cause I think by the time this airs it will have already occurred. Um, but yeah, so then you guys can go to the website, www.the.
Jen Romanello (:we will be recording it.
Yes.
Jen Romanello (:Okay.
Jen Romanello (13:6.451)
medicalstudentforum.website.com slash Chicago or our social media at the Medical Student Forum.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes. We'll put it all into the notes here so that they can access it and see what they need to hear from or to get a better idea of what everything is. And then I think the smart team evolved from the forum too, OK. So let's.
Jen Romanello (:Yes. So what's been really cool is that there's been so much interest and then people are like, oh, well, there's all this excitement. What can we now do with this? Or all these students creating change. I want to make change. So for example, we had a lot of students reach out to us that wanted to do research in the first two years of the forum. So we reached out to Dr. Rachel Rubin.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Mm-hmm.
Jen Romanello (14:0.140)
saying this and she said, let's do a monthly meeting. And that was how the sexual medicine research team was born. Dr. Rubin had always wanted to get a group of students together and now she saw that there was the excitement and the reservoir of students and two, yeah, two of our board members of the forum were the initial leaders of SMRT.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah, she is.
Yes.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah, so there's a whole, for any students listening, there's a whole sexual medicine research team. It's SMRT and there's an Instagram page. But where some of the newest things that we're researching gets presented, we all know about, and I've talked about the general urinary syndrome or menopause and basically of hormone deficiency. It was studied more in terms of postpartum and
recently coined and published the general urinary syndrome of lactation, which is from the SMART team. there's a really cool, I was trying to get in touch with Rachel to get involved because I have so many GLP patients, but there is a new study that is underway on the impact of GLP-1s on sexual function, which if you guys remember the
Jen Romanello (:Yes, which is cutting edge, very important research.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:podcast I did with Dr. Alexandra Sowell, who wrote the Ozembic Revolution. I just did a podcast with her and it was pretty cool because I kept asking her about like because she's a obesity medicine doctor having really treated patients for the last 10 years, but we had some interesting discussions around sexual function dysfunction. So I think she'll be very much involved, you know, happy to get involved as well, potentially.
Jen Romanello (:Yeah, I've heard from a few students who are also members of the forum who've worked on that study and looking at it also in terms of PGAD, which sounds so cool. I actually had dinner last weekend with one of the students working on that, Melissa, because we do a lot of in-person meetups at the forum too and just try to make community get together in person.
Dr Sameena Rahman (16:4.887)
That's wonderful.
Yeah, right, right. Awesome. Yeah. All right, cool. then so like, you know, I think it's interesting because sexual medicine is such a diverse field that you can approach it from so many different angles, right? And I talk about how Ishwush is like one of the few totally multidisciplinary organizations that you'll ever get involved when we have, you know, some prominent physical therapists, pelvic board therapists, we have sex therapists, we have psychotherapists, we have
Internist, have urologists, gynecologists, oncologists, have full nurse practitioners, other physician assistants. And so it really is a multidisciplinary team because sexual medicine is biopsychosocial. You need a team of people to help patients get through these issues. So you're here as a student, Like you were your first year when you got kind of interested, were a
first year when you started the forum. So your first year when you started the forum, you know that you wanna kind of get into sexual medicine in some capacity because this is an interest of yours and you've been doing a lot of work with it. And then you start the rotations, right? So tell us about that. Cause I mean, you eventually chose internal medicine to apply for in residency and to attend and which is...
Jen Romanello (17:7.147)
Yes.
Jen Romanello (:Mm-hmm.
Jen Romanello (:Mm-hmm.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:I think a great entry into, know, we know that so many menopause clinicians are internists, so many sex med clinicians are internists. So tell us how you kind of came to that conclusion for yourself, because everyone has their own, like, you know, whatever their inclination. Some people love surgery, they want to be a part of that. Some people love, you know, just sort of the detective work of trying to figure out what's going on with people. So tell us about your journey.
Jen Romanello (:Mm-hmm.
Jen Romanello (18:1.190)
I went to med school like very set on OBGYN and I really did. Yeah. And then I was thinking psych and then I then I decided on internal medicine and I've been very happy with my decision also in how it will allow me to practice sexual medicine and menopause. But on my rotations third year, I really loved my OBGYN rotation. It made me like want to do it more actually, which a lot of people are surprised by.
Dr Sameena Rahman (18:5.553)
which is so interesting.
Jen Romanello (:But I eventually learned that I feel like I think more like an internist and less like an OB-GYN. I didn't see myself doing surgery and obstetrics and I loved for internal medicine. got to understand and feel comfortable with the body as a whole and like that detective work and getting to know patients with more continuity. And so I also am interested in menopause and I like that.
I could also focus on bones and weight and hair and it wouldn't just be guy. I could do that and there are some women's health fellowships after internal medicine residency, but I have lot of interests and so I felt that this would allow me to do what I wanted.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's what just is so unique about this area of medicine, sexual medicine, is that you really can, and we love the approach from so many people. We love it when we get a spine, like we have a spine surgeons in sexual medicine, we have interventional pain doctors in sexual medicine. So I think it's very important to remember that this field, if you're a student or you're a resident, can really be approached from almost any arena.
because it's so important in so many patients' lives. And especially if you plan on taking care of women, at some point your patient will, if you're depending on, I mean, I guess maybe not if you're a pediatrician. At some point you'll deal with a midlife woman and you'll have to be able to kind of help navigate some of that journey. And I think it's really important to have your bearings in sexual medicine for that.
Jen Romanello (:Definitely, I've been very happy with my decision and NYU has a menopause clinic I've done elective at which has been great. so a lot of students have actually been coming to me since I made my decision asking about different ways. Yeah, because people really think if they have this interest they need to do OB-GYN, but there's a lot of different options.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:and then.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Oh, holy moly.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah, very legit. Although, yeah, I would say urologists are the ones that brought female sexual medicine on the map. Like Dr. Goldstein was treating men and then he's like, wait, no one's treating the women. Let's see what's going on. Well, that's awesome. And so, you know, in thinking of, you know, where you see like the form going, where do you like see yourself going? Where do you see sexual medicine going? Like, how do you feel like?
Jen Romanello (:Mm-hmm.
Jen Romanello (:Mm-hmm.
Dr Sameena Rahman (21:0.335)
Where's your thought process? We can start with the form, because that's your baby.
Jen Romanello (21:4.672)
Yeah, with the forum every year we do a few things differently like this year we're doing more in New York, we're doing more in person. I eventually would like to also get residents of different specialties involved. We really haven't touched on that yet and like training for this is important at all different levels. I also have recently done a leadership workshop for our members and telling them about like what I've learned over these five years and so also like training
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah. Yeah.
Jen Romanello (:our members to go back to their individual schools and communities and bring leadership there. And so one thing we've done this year is have our members be able to do like screenings of our old events in person with their classmates. So we just had one at Loyola. One at Dr. Yes, it was a great turnout. was in one of their auditoriums. We screened an old event, the orgasm event with Dr. Rubin.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Oh yeah, I saw your post. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was cool.
Dr Sameena Rahman (22:1.039)
That's cool.
Jen Romanello (22:1.186)
And then Dr. Yeah, it was so fun. And Dr. Mary Lynn then was there for the Q &A. So we could bring things like locally because, you know, we can do things. We started and we couldn't do things in person, but now, now we can. So that's for the future of the forum. For myself, I definitely want to focus on sexual medicine and menopause within internal medicine, potentially doing a fellowship after but
Dr Sameena Rahman (22:7.364)
Uh
Jen Romanello (:That's also what I really love is like no one owns this field and not everyone does a fellowship. There's still so many ways to learn and be engaged in this field.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah, yeah. Have you been in touch with, and we can talk offline if you want to, but have you been in touch with Lisa Larkin? Oh, okay, okay, she's awesome. We'll talk offline. She's amazing. She's obviously an internist that's kind of doing all of this amazing things too. And looking at, when you think about the form and the research,
Jen Romanello (:Yes, I have. Mm-hmm. Yes, definitely.
Dr Sameena Rahman (23:8.349)
What do you tell the students? you know, have all these students probably approaching you, like they want to help, they want to be involved. What kind of like tidbits do you give? Can you give, you know, the listeners who are like, what if you have, I mean, I've sent you so many students that rotate with me, you know, even internationally, right? That they come to me and they want to be involved. And so I just usually send, you know, I was like, oh, go talk to Jen. Get involved with smart, you know.
And so some of them have been able to do that. But what is the guidance? Because now you are a resident. I keep thinking of you as a student. But now you're a resident. What do you tell the students that kind of rotate with you or the ones that approach you? What kind of advice did you give them?
Jen Romanello (:Mm-hmm.
Jen Romanello (:of if they want to do sexual medicine.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah, exactly. they're involved with their involvement, how can they get buy-in from their perspective, know, med schools or with other attendings? What kind of tidbits do give them?
Jen Romanello (24:9.742)
Mm hmm. So first with like with just what specialty to explore. So that was the theme of our symposium last year. And we had we had a germ, physiatry, psychiatry, internal medicine, OBGYN, neurology, there could have also been like oncology and family med and neurosurgery. Yeah, but to like, no, like ask the real questions on your specialties of like, what the
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah, I remember that.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Sure. Yeah.
Jen Romanello (:what the day to day is like. I knew that in internal medicine, the hardest day would not be as hard for me as what the hardest day in OB-GYN would be. And ask yourself, what does the hardest day mean to you? And what else are the things that makes things really sustainable for you? I love long-term relationships with patients, and so ask attendings on these rotations, the real questions of what their experience is like. And if someone's passionate about female sexual medicine, you can do it in many.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Mm-hmm.
Dr Sameena Rahman (25:1.807)
Yeah.
Jen Romanello (25:6.434)
different ways and so that's why those types of questions matter because that differentiates the specialties. And then for your, let me hear your other question. Sorry, Carrie cut that.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Mm-hmm.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Oh, you know, when we're just discussing like how they can get buy-in from their school to get, you know, more involved with, you know, or bringing, you know, because you have all these, we have patient advocacy groups, that are trying to get, you know, problem-based learning into the curriculum or sex med into the curriculum or, you know, what if someone's at a school that doesn't have any of this and they really want to champion it?
And they might not be the ones to do it because they don't have the experience in sex, man, but they want to bring it to their school. What kind of advice do you give them? Because I feel like that is the challenging part for so many students is really trying to figure out, we need to learn this in our school and we're not. And I'm learning this in the forum, which is probably the purpose of the forum. But what about all these other students that need to learn it? How can we bring it into the curriculum?
Jen Romanello (:Hmm.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:And so I know, you know, I've interviewed people from tight-lipped before and that's a patient advocacy group trying to incorporate more pelvic pain assessments and general pelvic dysesthesia assessments into OB-GYN curriculum. But we're talking about people from all over different, you know, specialties. So, you know, what do you tell students who, you know, are like, well, how can I do this, you know, to bring it into my school or my residency?
Jen Romanello (:Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I have a friend at Downstate in Brooklyn who started like a local group at her school of like a sexual health group. So starting one at your school and getting others involved. I have at the institutions I've been at like Rush and NYU, have it has not been hard to get buy in from the people around me. But I know that that's not the case at other schools that some of our members go to. So I think it's great that
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah.
Dr Sameena Rahman (27:3.077)
Yeah.
Jen Romanello (:then there are these independent events like an independent groups, the forum SMRT that students can go to and people who are interested. But then to bring it back, find out who is in charge of the sexuality and reproduction curriculum at your school. That's what it was called at Rush. And so me and some other members of the forum at Rush went to that course director and she let us look through the materials and give suggestions.
which was really great and we just asked and she was very open to that.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah, and I would also say like if you're at, you know, we have a lot of what we call Ishwish deserts, which are just areas where there are not that many clinicians that have a sexual medicine background, or at least where Ishwish, you know, is there's no members out there. But if you even go to the directory at Ishwish, you can find out where the members or specifically the fellows are that, you know, they're more invested, I think, in sexual medicine and education and find one of the clinicians that you could pair up with too, you know, because that could be
way to go. But also, now the world is so small, like virtually, you can really get in touch with anyone that might be able to say like, I'll come and do a virtual Grand Rounds for school or that kind of thing. And that can really get some people motivated to do it. All right. And so we were talking earlier about the study that I always introduce to my medical students when I talk. So can you tell us about that study? I think it was very, it was a great study looking
Jen Romanello (:Mm-hmm.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Well, you can explain it, but it's looking at the seven medical schools in Chicago.
Jen Romanello (:Yes, so it was published in Sexual Medicine Reviews in September 2023. So it's called Female Sexual Medicine and Assessment of Med School Curriculum in a Major US City. So we looked at the pre-clerkship and clerkship curriculum at Chicago area med school. that the pre-clerkship are usually the first two years when people are in the classroom and then clerkship are when people are rotating through the different specialties. And we looked at
what people from the schools were including. And it was very inconsistent across the schools. So for example, pre-clerkship materials, only three out of seven schools, for example, highlighted the prevalence or epidemiology of female sexual dysfunction. Four discussed the physiology of female orgasm. Remember at my school rush, they overall did, they were very comprehensive with our criteria, but they did not talk about that. They only talked about.
male orgasm, and then what was taught on the physical exam. Did one institution identify all the anatomical components of the clitoris that we were looking at? So it was interesting because the school that had the most comprehensive curriculum was Loyola, which is a religiously affiliated school, but that's because Dr. Mary Lynn is there. So with discrepancies across schools, what
Dr Sameena Rahman (30:6.715)
Yeah.
Jen Romanello (:What really is making a difference because it's not standardized is like who's actually at the school informing curriculum.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Right. you know, I have my clinical appointment at Northwestern and so does Dr. Stryker and she was the one that was giving, before I started two years ago, I think she was giving the Repro SexMed 101 talk. And then for last two years I've been doing it. And so I think that's important. And then this year what we've done is implemented in the third year a problem-based learning curriculum for each OB-GYN rotation. So I go once a month to Northwestern and present a case.
And we and we do a pre and post, you know assessment of it But it's a discussion and I've actually had a lot of students that come rotate with me afterwards because they're like we didn't get that Like any of that when I was rotating with you So I think you know all of this is informing change and we're all trying to do our best to ultimately ultimately make it you know make make women's health a little bit better for the patients we take care of because I think that's the main issue is
Jen Romanello (31:2.018)
Oh, that's great.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:particularly with women's health and women's sexual health, there just remains a lot of trauma and stigma that occurs. And trauma mainly, not only like whatever sexual traumas they may have encountered, but really the medical trauma they have to endure, right? And that's one of the pieces I think that you guys are gonna discuss at the symposium this year. And one of the pieces that really motivated you to wanna start the forum, right? Because you're like, wow, all these people are getting traumatized. And that's very true. mean, that's why some patients
Jen Romanello (:Yes.
Jen Romanello (:Mm-hmm.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:start the discussion really on edge because you might be the seventh or eighth clinician they've seen and they have to kind of redo everything, start from scratch. And so it's really important to hopefully not continue this cycle for them where they're just seeing clinician after clinician without gaining any real pain relief or knowledge of what's happening or anything else.
And I think that's going to come with more research that we're all doing. leaders like you, Jen, it's amazing what you've been able to accomplish and bringing forward the sexual medicine movement into your generation. So that's awesome.
Jen Romanello (:Thank you.
Jen Romanello (:Thank you so much.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Any other last bit of advice you want to give a student listening when it comes to I mean, I think you said something really important which You know, maybe I never thought about when I was trying to figure out what what what to do because I always thought I would do OBGYN and that's what I did but Is really looking at what is the hardest day for that specialty look like I've never you know, that's that's actually a really good I think pointer to give someone because that can really
Jen Romanello (:Mm-hmm.
Dr Sameena Rahman (33:4.957)
And obviously, as you go through your clinical life, things change. I don't practice OB anymore. My lifestyle is much better than it was eight or 10 years ago. But those are important factors. Is there anything else that you would tell a student who's trying to figure out what to do and really is choosing between a couple of professions?
Jen Romanello (:Mm-hmm.
Jen Romanello (:I think that if people even want it, like I know sometimes people will do apply and then they will decide up until, you know, when they're done interviewing and there's nothing wrong with that either. It makes it a little bit harder to, you know, apply with how you phrase things in your application, but I don't think people have to decide until they're ready and it also doesn't mean that they're like lost or not passionate or there's nothing wrong with that either.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Hmm.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah.
Jen Romanello (:I think people, there's a pressure to know exactly what you want to do and be super excited about it, but it's also a big thing to even learn about what's out there. And it takes time and knowing yourself and asking the right questions. what does the hardest day in a specialty look like? How would that impact you? Like I knew that what the hardest day on obstetrics would look like would be very hard for me. And I knew that what the hardest day in internal medicine looked like.
would not impact me the same way. And I've been very happy with my decision. I love clinic, and I refer outpatient to inpatient. And I knew that. I don't really want to do much in the hospital. But I'm already seeing patients with pelvic pain or genitourinary syndrome, a menopause in resident clinic. And sometimes they bring it up to me, and sometimes I ask.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah.
Jen Romanello (:I want people to know that there a lot of options out there. I'm happy if people want to, you know, reach out to me on social media and talk about this either, you know, one of my good friends from med school wants to do vulvar dermatology. I didn't even know that was a thing until she said that. it's, there's so many options out there.
Dr Sameena Rahman (35:5.605)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, and I think with vulvar derm, you know, there's the ISSBD, the International Society for the Study of Vulvar Rage and All Diseases. So when I go to that meeting every year, it's lot of dermatology. Like they're pretty much leading the discussions on all the vulvar dermatologic skin conditions, but we still have a lot of guineas that come through. But I think it's true. There's so many ways to come at this. And I feel like
We need all the people, right? We need all of them to bring in their input. someone that's doing germs exclusively has something to tell us about some of the newest treatments to biologics versus someone that is just doing urology without a lot of the vulvar stuff. Maybe they're doing male urology only. So it's so much that we need. And we know with couples, whether or not you're intercourse with a male, female, whatever, you
Jen Romanello (:Yes.
Dr Sameena Rahman (36:3.697)
It's a sex ban. It's sort of a couple thing for a lot of people that you have to treat both people for the most part. And so it's important to know all of the other clinicians involved so that you can create a better, as Dr. Mojera, I had him on my podcast, he does a lot of discussion around the sex ban of a couple. And so I think that that is an important part of improving couple sex ban.
Jen Romanello (:Mm-hmm.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:is really having multiple clinicians involved.
Jen Romanello (:Yes, that's what makes it fun too. It's all the great colleagues in this field.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah. Yes, yes. It's very collegial compared to a lot of others, you know, because it's like, and the four, like the internal forums that you can present cases at, they're really nice to be able to, you know, get some ideas from other clinicians of how to treat certain complicated patients. So I think it's great.
Jen Romanello (:So all the students listening should come to ISWISH. They'd be very welcomed.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah, absolutely. I think I'm taking four or five with me this year.
Jen Romanello (37:3.912)
Oh great, okay I've been the last three years but I'm not able to make it this year in Atlanta.
Dr Sameena Rahman (37:7.914)
Yeah, yeah, I think next year in 26, it'll be in Long Beach I'll get you
Jen Romanello (:Okay, I liked Long Beach last year. I made a little vacation out of it over my spring break. It was nice.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Oh, there you go. I think it's going to be closer to the Valentine's Day time for that one. So it'll be interesting. I'll keep you posted. I'm going to be the scientific chair. So if you want to be involved, then we do want some residents and maybe even a couple students involved potentially. So I'll be in touch with you. All right, awesome. Well, thank you, Dr. Jen Remanel.
Jen Romanello (:Okay.
Jen Romanello (:Oh, that's great.
Jen Romanello (:Okay, great.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Thank you, Dr. Chen Rominello. I really appreciate you being here. I know you're on nights and so life is a little more hectic these days, but I appreciate you bringing your input. As a student now, a resident, but how to really navigate sexual medicine and how to bring it to your school and your community, I think that's great to hear. Thanks guys for joining in today. I'm Dr. Samina Raman, gynecologist.
Thank you for joining us for Gyno Girl Presents Sex, Drugs, and Hormones. Remember, I'm here to educate so you can advocate for yourself. Please join me again next week. Yay! I'm going stop this so it starts to download.
