Emily WilliamsLed by nurse practitioners and formed by the University of Alberta professor and Associate Dean (research) in the faculty of nursing Colleen Norris, a new virtual clinic aiming to provide revolutionary health care for women across Alberta is set to open in Edmonton later this year. The clinic seeks to help women with the transition into and out of menopause.
For Norris, women’s reproductive health is an important topic to discuss. Norris, whose area of research expertise is women’s heart health, explained that certain aspects of menstruation, pregnancy, and menopause are often undiscussed and overlooked.
The menstrual cycle and the factors behind it is what Norris calls “the most sophisticated, beautiful algorithm that’s supposed to happen in a body that isn’t undergoing the stress and the environmental impacts that are happening today.”
Norris explained the impact of this stress and the potential environmental impacts that can affect a menstruating body.
“There’s a direct relationship with stress and cardiovascular disease. So women who have had intimate partner violence or have had trouble in their childhoods … those [factors] are related to women’s cardiovascular disease, and we think the pathway is stress.”
The importance of estrogen for women’s cardiovascular health was also stressed by Norris.
“There are around 400 estrogen and progesterone receptors in the body, and they are in your heart, lungs, brain, and in all of your blood vessels. And estrogen has at least eight primary functions to keep your blood vessels healthy. So when we do anything to stop that estrogen we call it endogenous, and it can damage your blood vessels and put you at greater risk for heart disease.”
Clinic to address overlooked reproductive concerns
Norris seeks to address misinformation, such as myths surrounding birth control and its ability to provide the body with adequate levels of estrogen.
“Often women will say ‘oh I’m on the birth control pill,’ when all that pill does is fool the brain into thinking you’re pregnant. It does not help in your own endogenous estrogen, in fact, it might cut it off, and I think women need to be aware of this, and they need to pay attention to it so that they can be preventative in their bone, heart, and brain health moving forward.”
With this information, Norris and her team are looking to revolutionize the way many women receive medical treatment for declining estrogen levels occurring during post-reproductive and menopausal stages of life.
Norris pointed out some current issues experienced by women seeking this type of medical treatment, as well as general medical treatment.
“We do know things such as if you get your first period before 12-years-old, or after 16 years of age, those are directly linked to cardiovascular diseases, but no physician ever asks a woman, who say is having chest pains, ‘when did your periods start,’ [or] ‘did you have complications in pregnancy,” because we still are really divorcing that part of women’s health from everything else.”
Norris also emphasized the seriousness of certain post-reproductive symptoms that are often overlooked by medical care professionals.
“We’ve found literature that details how the women in menopause who experience the worst hot flashes and night sweats already have some level of cardiovascular disease in their vessels, and we’re seeing if we can prevent that.”
“This should be knowledge that’s available to every woman,” Norris says
According to Norris, health complications resulting from estrogen loss will be addressed by the clinic in terms of both prevention and mitigation. This is planned to be done through providing more accessibility than current care models.
“In cities, you can go to hormone clinics and pay for it. Although I think it should be provided for all women, it takes time and it’s expensive.”
Current care models also don’t seem to address the diversity of experiences felt by different women, such as those felt by Indigenous women, Norris explained. This clinic plans to address this by prioritizing the individual.
“It’s primary care and that’s all we’re dealing with, we’re not taking away any business from anybody. There are 300,000 women in Alberta that are unattached, meaning they don’t have a primary care doctor,” Norris explained. “The clinic [is] nurse practitioner-led … nurse practitioners have a graduate degree and they are able to diagnose and prescribe things, they have a deep clinical knowledge, and are able to take care of patients.”
In working towards the opening of this clinic, Norris’ goal of advancing reproductive health remains central to the clinic’s future functioning and research incentives.
“This is a natural part of our body and our health, and this should be knowledge that’s available to every woman.”
