As someone who’s been a practicing OB/GYN for 29 years, what’s the most interesting thing you’ve learned when it comes to women’s health? I have seen women take their healthcare into their own hands. The stunning lack of progressive and up-to-date menopausal care in the U.S. as well as the horrific reversal of access to reproductive rights, including contraception and abortion care has driven women to realize they can not rely on either the medical system or the legal system to inform or support them.
The most important thing I have seen is the recent allocation of the Biden Administration of massive government funding for research directed at women's health.
You recently visited Kenya to provide health services to women and girls. How has that changed your outlook on healthcare, particularly in terms of the unique challenges faced by women and girls in different parts of the world?
That experience, providing family planning and cancer screening services to women who had never had any contact with a health care provider, underscored for me the enormity of the global gendered healthcare gap, valued at a trillion dollars by a McKinsey report published this year.
They often do not get basic care because they can not afford the transportation to a clinic. This is actually the same reason why women in New Jersey do not get contraceptive or abortion care: lack of ability to afford transportation to a clinic or to miss work for a clinic visit. This is why I am proud of having worked to get legislation passed in New Jersey to allow women to renew birth control prescriptions without a repeat clinic visit. This will reduce unplanned pregnancies in New Jersey and other states in the region.
If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about women’s healthcare right now, what would it be?
I would make the right to abortion a nationwide right, enshrined in the Constitution.
How do you find flow in your everyday routine? I tried meditating and it is helpful, but for me, I find flow by walking outside either in nature or even in my neighborhood and I intentionally leave my phone at home. My phone is the biggest impediment to productivity, to peace, to creative thought, to flow. I read for 15 minutes every morning then exercise for 45 minutes and the combination sets me up for the day. Nighttime flow comes from dimming lights, a warm shower and a little more reading. Music, Netflix, stimulating conversations are all another sort of flow, but a shared flow with my partner or friends. | 
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