Dr Susan Hardwick-Smith

Yeah, well, that's such a nice introduction.

Thank you.

It's so lovely to be with you.

And I've been following you for ages and had this amazing opportunity to meet you in LA at a meeting and we hit it off.

And we've got connections, as you said, through Dr. Kira, who I just saw on your podcast a few weeks ago.

So yes, I was born in New Zealand, moved here when I was 18, trained as a traditional MD, went through the traditional OB-GYN training.

And I practiced traditional OB-GYN for 20 years, delivered 7,000 babies, did all the surgeries, all the wonderful things that we can do in that specialty.

But as your listeners know, we learned nothing about menopause, like absolutely nothing.

And so when I reached my mid-40s and started having those symptoms myself, I was absolutely clueless about what to do to help myself.

I went through

About a year of being untreated, I didn't think I was old enough to go through menopause.

I was a gynecologist because I thought, I'm 45.

That can't be happening.

Completely clueless.

And then when I finally figured out how to replace my hormones safely and I felt amazing...

I retired from that traditional OB-GYN practice, went into a menopause specific practice in 2020, not the best time to start a business in the middle of COVID, but I just had to do it.

I'm like, I need to do this.

Honestly, I thought I would just have a quiet little life with just me and my nurse practitioner.

And that didn't work because it was so popular.

Now we've got three offices in Texas and growing and 12 providers and the virtual program and all the things.