Most Doctors Weren't Taught Much About Menopause. The People Who Train Them Just Said So.

A new editorial in a major OB-GYN journal is pushing to fix how menopause gets taught. It won't change your next appointment. It explains a lot about why the last one went the way it did.

If you've ever brought hot flashes, wrecked sleep, or a body that stopped feeling like your own to a doctor and walked out with "that's just your age," you're not imagining it. There's a reason it keeps happening, and it isn't you.

In 2023, researchers asked the directors of U.S. OB-GYN residency programs a simple question: do you actually teach menopause? Only 31% said their program had a menopause curriculum (Allen et al., 2023). These are the programs training the specialists you get sent to for exactly this.

The number behind the shrug

That survey went to 145 program directors, the people who decide what the next generation of OB-GYNs learns. Most of them, 93%, agreed that residents everywhere should have a standard menopause curriculum. Most said they'd use one if it existed. Only 31% had one (Allen et al., 2023).

So the gap isn't that trainers don't care. The training was never built. The people running these programs can see the hole. Nobody has ...