Hello, I'm Dr. Louise Newsome and welcome to my podcast. I'm a GP and menopause specialist and I run the Newsome Health Menopause and Wellbeing Centre here in Stratford-Bron-Avon. I'm also the founder of the Menopause charity and the Menopause support app called Balance.

On the podcast, I will be joined each week by an exciting guest to help provide evidence-based

information and advice about both the perimenopause and the

menopause. So today with me in the studio, I've got Rupa, who I've never actually met before,

like a lot of people I seem to podcast. I've corresponded quite a lot over the internet and now I'm

delighted to meet her virtually but at least I can see her face and listen to her now. So hi Rufa,

thanks for coming. Hi, Lou. No problem. So tell me a bit about your healthcare professional but you're not a

doctor, you're not a nurse, you're a pharmacist. And pharmacists, in my mind, have a really,

really crucial role for many reasons, but obviously all I think about is the perimenopause

and menopause. And when it comes to care of women, actually, pharmacists, I think, have been

neglected for quite a long time about how important they are and the pivotal role that they can really have at

improving the future health of women and actually avoiding them going to see their GP

sometimes as well. So tell me a bit about your work and why did you even decide to be a pharmacist

in the first place? Wow, that was 18 years ago I made the decision a long time.

Pharmacies changed since then.

We were only really looking at working in community or hospital, but now as the years

have gone by, we can now be prescribers, which is what I am.

And we are now able to go and work with GPs in GP practices, which is amazing.

But a lot of pharmacists have bad experiences in GP practices.

They use as admin work rather than really utilizing our skills.

But I am fortunate that I work with an amazing practice, Dr. Bupow, Dr. Morrell.

They're my mentors.

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