Dr. Sharon Malone has spent decades fighting for women to get the healthcare they deserve, and she's not slowing down. As Chief Medical Advisor at Alloy Women's Health, host of "The Second Opinion" podcast, and author of the New York Times bestseller "Grown Woman Talk," Dr. Malone joins Dr. Mary Claire Haver in this episode to talk about reshaping how we think about menopause, aging, and women's health advocacy.
For too long, women have been told to accept suffering as normal. Hot flashes, brain fog, joint pain, sleep problems, the complete unraveling of quality of life during perimenopause and menopause? Dr. Malone talks about being done with that narrative. In this conversation, she explains how the medical system has systematically failed women, from keeping them out of research studies to applying male-centric data to female bodies, from dismissing their menopause symptoms to perpetuating dangerous myths about estrogen and hormone therapy that have left an entire generation undertreated.
She breaks down the Women's Health Initiative, the deeply flawed study that scared women away from hormone replacement therapy (HRT). She explains exactly what went wrong, why the study enrolled women who were too old to answer the questions it claimed to address, and why doctors are still getting it wrong today, decades after the original findings were walked back. The cost? A generation of women suffering unnecessarily while billions in research dollars went elsewhere.
Dr. Malone also tackles the intersection of gender and racial bias in medicine, explaining why your zip code matters more than your genetic code when it comes to health outcomes. From her own journey navigating medical school as a Black woman in the 1980s to losing her mother to cancer at just 12, she points out the healthcare disparities from both sides of the exam table.
At 66, Dr. Malone is proof that midlife isn't about decline. It's about stepping into your power. And she shares a clear message that women have accepted suffering for far too long, and it's time to demand better.
00:00 – Why Midlife Is Your Most Powerful Season 01:06 – Meet Dr. Sharon Malone: A Lifelong Advocate for Women’s Health 04:11 – Growing Up in the Jim Crow South & the Power of Education 05:08 – Losing Her Mother at 12: The Cost of No Access to Care 06:35 – Her Sister vs. George Wallace: Integrating the University of Alabama 08:48 – From IBM to Med School: Pressing Pause Before Becoming a Doctor 11:37 – Choosing OB/GYN: Finding the Joyful Side of Medicine 13:54 – Training While Black: Diversity, Bias & How Doctors Are Taught 17:44 – Residency, Marriage, and Motherhood in the 100-Hour Workweek Era 22:38 – Redefining 60: Why Dr. Malone Is Happier at 66 Than 46 25:34 – The Michelle Obama Podcast That Changed Everything 25:05 – Inside Alloy: Telehealth Built for Menopausal Women 35:10 – What Really Happened with the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) 39:40 – Hormone Therapy, Breast Cancer Fears & the Truth About Risk 45:28 – “You’re Never Done with Menopause”: Why Symptoms Aren’t the Whole Story 49:37 – Longevity, Independence & Why Women Fear Their Final Decades 50:50 – Disparities in Women’s Health: Race, Zip Code & Access to Care 01:00:28 – Second Opinions, New Careers & Unpausing Your Life After 60
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