Laura Dowling is a pharmacist, women’s health advocate, entrepreneur, and the creator of the hugely popular platform The Fabulous Pharmacist. Her new book, Love Your Vulva, is a straight-talking guide to women’s health at every stage of life.Contains adult themes and strong language.Season finale.Brought to you by Ballymore.Follow the show:Instagram: @bookshelfpodcastTikTok: @bookshelfpodcastFollow Ryan:Instagram: @instatubridy Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Bookshelf with me, Ryan Tuberty, is brought to you by Ballymore. Founded by Sean Mulrhyne in 1982, Ballymore has long put arts and culture at the heart of what it does, from supporting artists and performers to weaving creativity into the neighbourhoods it builds. Alongside this cultural commitment, Ballymore creates places with soul
Its international portfolio is filled with award-winning workspaces, homes, shopping centres and entire neighbourhoods across Dublin, London, Bratislava, Prague and Berlin. Places where design, innovation and creativity come together and where people can live, work and play. Well, today on the bookshelf, I am joined by pharmacist, author and women's health advocate, Laura Dowling.
She will be known to her many, many thousands of followers as the fabulous pharmacist with good reason. Her debut book, Love Your Vulva, is a groundbreaking and compassionate guide to women's intimate health, combining medical expertise, lots of humor and artistry to help women understand and celebrate their bodies. I will add to that to help men understand as well.
This is a conversation for one and all, which is why I'm so happy to welcome Laura to the bookshop. Welcome aboard.
Thanks for having me.
It's good to see you.
It's great to meet you.
And congratulations on all you've done so far. You've been very busy this last few months, really, because you've got a lot of appearances and book launches. So tell us about what's been happening in the last little while and then we'll work our way back.
Okay, so I launched a book recently in September. So that has been a whirlwind, I suppose, of exactly appearances. I've been over and back to the UK as well and trying to, I suppose, juggle everything. I'm also a mum of three lads who just want to eat all the time. Now they can cook for themselves, but you know, someone has to put the... the food into the fridge for them. What ages?
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Chapter 2: What is the main focus of Laura Dowling's book, Love Your Vulva?
This is what it's about. And this is how you can access the care that you might need. And I really wanted to make it accessible to people. So it's really easy to read. The font's big. People have said to me, I can read it without my glasses. Yeah. And actually, one of the books that I gave you was The Enormous Crocodile by Roald Dahl.
And I actually got the idea for the design of the book from that because I love the big, you know, the font changes and the different sizes. And I said to my designer, like, I want it to be like a Roald Dahl book for adults. Yeah. to make it really interesting to read and all the design work.
People are busy and easily distracted. So it's hard to get a book into their hands, one, but two, a book that they want to stay with. Because the information you're probably offering is not the usual, if you like, you have to find a way to challenge them in some way.
Exactly, yeah. And they can open it up at any page and they can see that there's lovely illustrations and really easy, concrete information there, but it's not too over-medicalized, which is what was really important to me.
Really important because that medicalization is just, it turns people away because they're saying, well, I don't get that. I didn't study medicine, so don't talk to me in fluent medical language. At what point, Laura, did you decide this needs a book, this needs more attention? Was it over years or did you meet somebody at the counter one day and say, I'm done? Was there a trigger?
So the whole reason for the book, I suppose, if we go back a little bit, was the shows. And then the reason for the shows was some corporate talks that I'd done.
So just take, for instance, I was working in the pharmacy for 20 years and women would be coming in with all kinds of various complaints, not knowing how to name their bits, not knowing where to go to for help, having incontinence, prolapse, regular thrush that they couldn't get a handle on. So I saw that firsthand.
And then I saw how shy they were about talking about it and how they didn't even want to get examined by their doctor. So when I was asked to do a corporate talk series for a wellness crowd there a number of years ago, they kind of saw me talking about this on Instagram. And I said to them, well, what do you want me to talk about? And they said just any part of women's health.
So then I decided I'd go and I'd talk about women's intimate health to these ladies. And I thought I'd, you know, mention sex and sexuality and really try and break open the conversation. Plus, I didn't want to be just talking about the usual diet, sleep, exercise conversation. So when I went into this first corporate talk that I did, there was about 200 women in front of me.
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Chapter 3: How does Laura's background in pharmacy influence her perspective on women's health?
How do you force a 17-year-old to sit down and read? But they'll find their way. They'll find their way back to books. I think people that loved reading as children, they inevitably find their way back when they have the time and the space. Isn't that right?
That's right. And the teenage years are just... the Wild West so you have to kind of let them off in that respect so school you enjoyed by the sounds of things you were probably a good student were you?
I loved school I was a bit of a messer but I really loved school and I suppose I had a high achieving gene in me so I really wanted to do well but I also loved having the cracks so yeah I really loved school
Do you have a teacher that meant an awful lot to you?
Do you know what? I have two. Do you want to give them a name check? Mrs. Stafford in St. Olaf's National School. She's now dead, actually. But she was my fifth and sixth class teacher. And she was really strict, but she was also really lovely too. And I'll never forget, she used to really try and encourage you to write. So she'd put up mad titles of your essay, like if or but. Oh, very good.
And that'd be the title. So you could just let your mind go wild. Yeah. So she definitely gave me, encouraged me to use my creative side. I loved her really good. And then, interestingly enough, in secondary school, there was an Irish teacher and I was never good at Irish, Mr Maloney, but he was just a lovely man.
And, you know, I remember telling him I'm dropping down to pass maths in, I'm dropping down to pass Irish in sixth year. I remember telling him that because I just, there's no way I would have passed honours Irish. And I remember him saying to me, oh, just, just, oh, gorgeous. He was from Donegal. Oh,
would you not just stay and just sit in the class even but he was just a really lovely man even though I was a dire student like awful yeah so him and I think teachers can have such a really such an effect on you as a youngster growing up they can be that other parent that isn't a parent but that's just that overseer yeah
Yeah, I have very fond memories of many teachers, but those two would stand out.
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Chapter 4: What common issues do women face regarding intimate health?
Yes, around the world.
Exactly. And it wasn't, there wasn't very much like it in Ireland at the time. There was no other authors that were writing those kinds of novels and really relatable to young girls. So that's why I loved it.
Your book that brought you joy or made you laugh is also very pertinent to where you are today. So you're going to go for Adam Kay's book.
Yes. Have you read it?
I have read this book. It's called This Is Going To Hurt. And tell everyone about this as a kind of a bird's eye view.
Yeah, it's a diary of a junior doctor going through his junior doctor role and then on to senior house officer, then on to trying to be a consultant. In obstetrics and gynecology. And it is a diary of his workload and how the NHS were basically expecting doctors to work, you know, 100 hour weeks with very little backup. But it's really funny. Yeah.
It's very straight and to the point and you can really see what doctors and all healthcare professionals go through in terms of that work burden and the load. But he tells so many funny stories. I will never forget. I read it on a plane. I can't remember where we were going, but I was reading it and I got to the part where, you know the part of the degloved penis? Oh, I don't know. Oh my God.
Oh my God. Yeah, yeah. But the way Adam Kay describes it, like I had tears rolling down my cheeks on the play and people were looking at me. I was howling with laughter, even though it's the most awful thing that could possibly happen.
Yeah, yeah.
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Chapter 5: How does societal perception affect women's discussions about their bodies?
Sorry.
Do you contend that if men had the menopause, it would have been dealt with much quicker and a long, long time ago?
Yeah, and we wouldn't have had any issues talking about it either. It's really only relatively recently that the menopause conversation has really happened, particularly in Ireland. And I absolutely, it's brilliant that it has and we need to keep talking about it to keep it in people's minds. But yes, absolutely, because the default in medicine has been your average man. Yes.
Even the books, even medical books, it's a male body.
And they talk about paternalistic approach to medicine a lot down through the years.
Sure, the Greek word for uterus is hystra. That's the word. Hysterical.
Hysterical, that's what it comes from. So therefore, she must be a female and on it goes. I mean, it is extraordinary. So it's been written in stone for some time and you want to kind of demystify that whole area of life and conversation.
Yeah, I really do, because I see how women have suffered throughout the years, be it in my, you know, in my practice as a pharmacist, but also my granny, you know, lived up the north. She was a Catholic woman who had 10 live births. I think she had two stillbirths. You know, the toll that that would have taken on her body.
She died at 53 from breast cancer and left behind a 12-year-old boy among, you know, he was the youngest. So... I can only imagine what she went through. This was your uncle who came living with you as a result. So the amount of women that have gone through issues, the amount of women that even now say that would have missed out on HRT because of the WHI study that linked HRT to breast cancer.
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Chapter 6: What role does education play in women's understanding of their health?
Yeah.
Oh, right. So you went straight.
Yeah.
I like that.
Because if it was an autobiography, I suppose it has to tell the story about everything. So, and everything that I do is really, I suppose, if I was to really dig down into it, it is for the women that went before me, my granny, my mother, my aunties. Okay, that's very meaningful. And all of those women.
And then also the women that I would have seen in the pharmacy that never got seen to, and all the women that I see at my shows. So everything that I do is for them, so they can get help now, but then so they can pass on the information to their daughters and their granddaughters. So, yeah.
A poignant autobiography, although I'm never going to write about autobiography, but if I did, that would be the name of it.
Well, I'll tell you who doesn't want you to write an autobiography, it's Mr. Fabulous, the poor man, your husband. He's just saying, put that pen down.
Oh yeah, no, he is strictly behind the scenes, never to be seen.
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