Meet Nurse Practitioner Nancy Chen: From Exercise Physiology to Midlife Women’s Hormone Care

Empowering Midlife Health: The Origin of Peri and Pause

Kristen wraps the nurse practitioner series and launches the founder series with Peri & Pause founder Jamie Gallagher, who shares what drew her into nursing, her critical care background, and why she became a nurse practitioner and later earned her DNP. Jamie explains how time limits, metrics, and fragmented, symptom-by-symptom care pushed her to rethink how midlife women are treated, especially after her own perimenopause experience revealed a major healthcare gap. She describes Peri & Pause’s model as relationship-driven, evidence-based whole-woman care through the perimenopause/menopause lens, including proactive prevention, collaboration with other clinicians, and referrals when needed. Jamie discusses misinformation and clinician shaming around hormones, the need for better clinician education, core values like integrity and humility, and her vision for continued growth to meet ongoing demand. 00:00 Podcast Welcome 01:09 Jamie Nursing Origins 02:47 Becoming Nurse Practitioner 04:46 Healthcare System Friction 08:27 Perimenopause Wake Up Call 11:13 Seeing the Bigger Pattern 13:11 Biggest Care Gap 14:20 Founding Peri and Pause 18:25 Building Patient First Practice 19:21 Whole Woman Care Approach 20:20 Coordinated Care Promise 20:46 Preventive Deep Dives 21:56 Proactive Treatment Mindset 22:19 Patient Wins That Matter 23:12 Word of Mouth Growth 24:12 Building a Mission Business 25:41 Imposter Syndrome and Connection 26:57 Misinformation and Clinician Shame 30:00 Why Education Still Lags 31:13 Values Purpose and The Future 36:45 Closing Thoughts and Wrap Up

Breaking the Silence: Women's Healthcare Insights with Jaime Davis

In this Meet the Nurse Practitioner episode of Per and Pause, nurse practitioner Jaime Davis shares how her background in primary care and labor and delivery shaped her patient-centered approach and her focus on midlife women’s care. She discusses how perimenopause is often missed because symptoms can look like stress or anxiety, and highlights early signs such as brain fog, insomnia, word-finding difficulty, and menstrual changes influenced by hormone fluctuations like declining progesterone. Jaime recounts her own experience of years of severe pain after a traumatic C-section that was initially dismissed, later diagnosed as subcutaneous endometriosis and resolved with a short surgery, underscoring the importance of trusting your body and finding providers who listen. She explains her commitment to connecting symptoms, tailoring plans to patient goals, and helping women feel heard, supported, and empowered. 00:00 Meet Jaime Davis 00:54 Labor and Delivery Lessons 02:24 Path to Midlife Care 03:50 Why Perimenopause Gets Missed 06:47 Dismissed Pain Story 11:08 Finding the Real Cause 13:29 What Listening Really Means 15:27 Beyond Rigid Guidelines 16:56 Early Perimenopause Clues 17:06 Brain Fog Sleep Anxiety 19:46 Symptoms Are Connected 21:29 Menopause Education Gaps 23:45 Care After Dismissal 25:10 The Peri Pause Experience 26:15 Closing Thanks Farewell ------ This podcast exists to normalize, explain, and elevate the midlife healthcare conversation—so women feel informed, believed, and empowered to demand better care for their bodies and lives. Visit https://periandpause.com for more info

Empowering Women Through Midlife Transitions: A Conversation with Amanda Maingi

On Peri and Pause the podcast, host interviews women’s health nurse practitioner Amanda Maingi, who shares why she chose women’s health, her education at Georgetown, and how menopause and perimenopause received limited focus in training despite women spending a third of life in this stage. Amanda describes noticing gaps while working in a fast-paced traditional GYN clinic, where time constraints and protocol-driven care could miss the “whole woman” experience. She contrasts younger patients’ typically more straightforward visits with the complexity of midlife, highlighting under-research, life stressors, and chronic conditions. Common perimenopause symptoms often mislabeled as anxiety or depression include sleep disruption, heart palpitations, brain fog, irritability, overwhelm, and feeling out of control. The episode emphasizes validation, individualized high-touch care beyond algorithms, and addresses misconceptions that hormone therapy is inherently dangerous, stressing risk-benefit tailoring and comprehensive evaluation. 00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro 00:53 Why Womens Health 02:17 Academic Journey Highlights 04:09 Menopause Education Gap 05:24 Clinic Reality and Missing Care 08:57 Midlife vs Younger Patients 13:14 Symptoms Mistaken for Anxiety 17:43 Beyond Protocols Individual Care 19:34 Patch And Pill Problem 21:21 Telehealth Versus High Touch 22:56 Layered Whole Woman Care 26:03 Validation First Visit 28:42 Hormone Therapy Myths 30:07 New Patient Expectations 31:53 Outro And Sign Off 32:23 Recording The Closing Script 34:16 Final Takeaway Message ------ This podcast exists to normalize, explain, and elevate the midlife healthcare conversation—so women feel informed, believed, and empowered to demand better care for their bodies and lives. Visit https://periandpause.com for more info

Meet Nurse Practitioner Nancy Chen: From Exercise Physiology to Midlife Women’s Hormone Care

In this episode of Peri & Pause - The Podcast, the second in the “Meet the Nurse Practitioner” series, the host interviews nurse practitioner Nancy Chen about her path from studying exercise physiology at Meredith College to working as a personal trainer, then becoming a nurse and moving into critical care, urgent care during the pandemic, and traditional primary care. Nancy explains how limited appointment times and “moral injury” pushed her toward specializing in perimenopause and midlife women’s health, after seeing patients struggle with symptoms, chronic disease changes, and feeling dismissed due to gaps in training. She emphasizes the importance of education, validation, realistic expectations, individualized treatment, and helping women feel heard and hopeful, including reviewing complex medication and supplement “cocktails” and supporting women through the fluctuating “moving target” of perimenopause. 00:00 Meet Nancy Chen 00:53 Exercise Physiology Roots 01:24 From Trainer to Nurse 01:52 Critical Care Wake Up 03:11 NP Path and Pandemic 04:22 Primary Care Time Crunch 05:58 Midlife Symptoms Puzzle 07:32 Personal Perimenopause Realization 09:42 Hormones and the Care Gap 15:23 What Patients Need First 16:22 Follow-Up Wins 16:59 Building the Foundation 20:59 Grace in Perimenopause 24:08 Finding Your Care Team 24:33 Medication Cocktail Reset 25:35 Message to Midlife Women 27:17 Thanks and Disclaimer

Navigating Menopause: A Conversation with Nurse Practitioner Kristen Nawyn

In this episode of The Peri and Pause podcast, Jamie Gallagher launch the “Meet the Nurse Practitioner” series by introducing Kristen Nawyn, a board-certified adult gerontology nurse practitioner and Menopause Society–certified menopause specialist. Kristin shares her path from ICU nursing through the pandemic to palliative care interests focused on goals, values, and quality of life, and explains how a family medicine preceptorship revealed the gaps in menopause care and shifted her career. She discusses limited menopause education in graduate school, her oncology research on chemotherapy-induced early menopause in premenopausal cancer survivors, and how sudden induced menopause differs from natural menopause. Kristin describes common “loss of self” experiences in perimenopause, the biology of hormonal fluctuations, the need for anticipatory guidance, and how she builds trust with patients, addresses long-term hormone therapy concerns, and advocates for whole-person, time-rich menopause care. 00:42 Podcast Intro and Guest Spotlight 02:08 Kristin’s Nursing Origin Story 03:10 What Palliative Care Really Is 04:35 From ICU to Nurse Practitioner 05:52 Discovering the Menopause Care Gap 08:43 Graduate School vs Real Menopause Care 10:37 Thesis on Chemo Induced Menopause 13:04 Losing Your Sense of Self 15:05 Natural vs Induced Menopause 16:52 Better Care for Cancer Survivors 17:46 Staying On Hormones 18:57 Risks Of Stopping 21:02 ICU Lessons On Aging 22:50 Earning Patient Trust 25:52 Midlife Women Carrying It All 28:24 You Are Not Crazy 29:00 Whole Person Menopause Care 30:43 Emotional Weight And Guilt 32:36 Closing Thanks And Wrap ------ This podcast exists to normalize, explain, and elevate the midlife healthcare conversation—so women feel informed, believed, and empowered to demand better care for their bodies and lives. Visit https://periandpause.com for more info