Addressing Dogma with Dr. Dorothy Fink

Addressing Dogma with Dr. Dorothy Fink

Women’s health has moved from the margins of healthcare policy to the center of the national conversation. Fertility rates are falling. GLP-1 medications are reshaping how we think about metabolic disease. Maternal mortality remains unacceptably high. Rural hospitals are struggling to keep maternity services open. And all of these challenges are competing for attention at the same time. At the same time, there is unprecedented energy flowing into women’s health. New investments, scientific breakthroughs, and growing public attention are creating real momentum. But progress is rarely linear. There are wins, and there are losses. Few people have a broader view of both than Dr. Dorothy Fink. In this episode of The Preprint, Dr. Neel Shah sits down with Dr. Dorothy Fink, endocrinologist, federal health official, and Director of the Office on Women’s Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to explore how women’s health priorities are shaped inside one of the most complex institutions in American government. Dr. Fink reflects on her path from academic medicine to federal service, what the Office on Women’s Health actually does, and how a clinician’s perspective informs her approach to policy. Together, they discuss metabolic health, the promise and limitations of GLP-1 medications, and whether medical innovation can outpace the food environments that contribute to chronic disease. The conversation also explores some of the biggest questions facing women and families today: declining birth rates, access to fertility care, rising maternal mortality, the future of maternity payment reform, and the challenges facing rural communities as obstetric services disappear across the country. At its core, this episode asks a bigger question: when women’s health becomes a national priority, how do we decide which problems get solved first? And how do we build on the wins while confronting the challenges that remain?

Who Deserves a GLP-1? with Dr. Janelle Duah

GLP-1 medications seemed to appear overnight: suddenly everywhere from physicians’ offices to TikTok feeds to dinner table conversations. But for obesity and lifestyle medicine specialist Dr. Janelle Duah, the story started long before the headlines. In the first episode of The Preprint, Dr. Neel Shah and Dr. Duah unpack what GLP-1s actually are, how they affect nearly every organ system in the body, and why the cultural conversation around these drugs reveals something much larger for women and families than weight loss. Together, they explore the growing tension between informed patients and skeptical physicians, the rise of direct-to-consumer medicine, and the uncomfortable reality that many of the patients who could benefit most from these medications still can’t access them. Dr. Duah also reflects on treating patients while living with PMOS herself, the stigma surrounding obesity medicine, and what it means when physicians react defensively to so-called “prepared patients.”  At its core, this episode asks a bigger question: when medicine changes faster than the healthcare system can adapt, who gets left behind?

Introducing: The Preprint with Dr. Neel Shah

Every person should be able to find their shortest and easiest path to parenthood. But that’s not the world we live in yet. Introducing The Preprint with Dr. Neel Shah: a monthly podcast hosted by Dr. Shah, an OB/GYN and Chief Medical Officer at Maven Clinic, the world’s largest virtual clinic for women and families. Dr. Shah explores the systems that bring people into the world, the ones that let them down, and what those of the future should look like. Drawing on the concept of a scientific paper before it’s been peer-reviewed, each episode shares dispatches from the frontlines of women’s and family health through real conversations with experts on what it takes to build something better. Subscribe to The Preprint with Dr. Neel Shah on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every month.  Want more from Dr. Shah? Follow his Substack: The Preprint with Dr. Neel Shah.