A high school teacher in her early fifties had been on hormone therapy for three years. She still had severe fatigue and could not concentrate. Eventually she could not work at all, and her GP diagnosed burnout. When she was seen by a gynaecologist and a psychiatrist together, structured assessment showed a major depressive disorder. Treated for that, she recovered.
Recorded live at the EMAS Academy in Rotterdam, this episode is about why that kind of case is so easily missed.
Dr Silvia Fernández Biesa, psychiatrist, speaks with Dr Dorenda van Dijken, gynaecologist, Prof Birit Broekman, Professor of Hospital Psychiatry at Amsterdam UMC, and Prof Petra Stute, EMAS President.
Dorenda and Birit ran a joint clinic together for almost six years, seeing women in the same consultation rather than in sequence. They discuss what they learned from each other, why psychiatrists receive no training on the perimenopause, why women often arrive convinced that hormones explain everything, and what happens to a woman’s working life when the diagnosis is wrong. As Dorenda puts it, hormones can be the trigger, but hormones are not always the solution.
Asked whether this kind of collaboration is sufficiently established across Europe, all three answered no.
Menopause and Work Conversations is a series from the EMAS Menopause in the Workplace Working Group, spotlighting the people working on menopause and working life across research, policy and practice.
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