Updates on EVERYTHING: Book giveaways and pre-order campaign! Audiobook! My new practice!
I kept my promise not to spam your inbox, huh?
Welcome back to GynoMight! It’s been a ridiculously busy few months, which is my excuse for not updating this newsletter for so long. But that just means I have an *absurd* number of exciting updates for you now! I’m talking book giveaways, upcoming book events, a sneak peak at my audiobook, and the long-awaited opening of my new solo medical practice, for those of you who’d like to see me as your doctor! Let’s dive right in…
My book, It’s Not Hysteria, is coming out May 7 in North America, and May 30 in the UK and Commonwealth countries (Australia, NZ, India, South Africa, and like 50-something other former UK colonies. Side note: how bizarre is this publishing follows these colonial patterns?). PLEASE pre-order, and ask for the book at your local independent bookstore and/or library! Pre-orders and reader interest are critically important: they show booksellers, librarians, and publishers that readers are excited about a book, and therefore stores and libraries are more likely to stock the book and recommend it to others!
My goal with It’s Not Hysteria is to empower *everyone* with information about gynecologic / sexual / reproductive health - especially women and those assigned female at birth who have long suffered from conditions like endo, fibroids, PCOS, PMDD, menopause, infertility, pregnancy loss, and who have likely struggled for years to be taken seriously by medical professionals. I want to break down the stigma around women’s health, and get people talking about these issues! I would love to see family members and friends, book clubs, as well as journalists, media outlets, and even policy makers, all discussing reproductive health openly and honestly. I just want a complete revolution in terms of society’s perspective on gyno stuff. That’s not too much to ask, right…?
We have some exciting giveaways for US readers! My N. American publisher, Flatiron, has a pre-order campaign to thank you for your purchase: upload your receipt, and you’ll get samples of Uberlube (yes, lube!) as well as access to the first few chapters of the book, so you can start reading NOW!
We’ll also be having at least TWO more giveaways of advance copies of the book on Goodreads (for US readers only, at this time)! Add It’s Not Hysteria to your Goodreads “Want to Read” list to get email updates when the giveaways are live! And if you’ve already read an advance copy, please leave a review so that others will know if you enjoyed it.
Add to your Goodreads "Want to Read" list!
This next part is SUPER late-breaking news! I JUST got word that the audiobook is finally done, and we have the first sample here! Check out the audio clip, and if you like audiobooks, you can order through the same pre-order links for the US and UK above - or wherever you get audiobooks!
Audiobook clip - listen on Soundcloud!
Stay tuned for more exciting book updates to come. As soon as we’ve finalized our BOOK TOUR events, I’ll announce them here first!
** Finally, FINALLY!! I’m absolutely thrilled to announce the opening of my brand new, solo medical practice: Thrive Gynecology! **
Learn about Thrive Gynecology!
I’ve been practicing medicine since 2010, and have faced every set-back and systemic problem in medicine today:
Not having enough time to give patients the care they deserve
Insurance companies basically denying necessary treatments left and right, and valuing complex gynecologic surgery at a tiny fraction that of other male-dominated surgical fields
Doing surgeries or providing care, but then having insurance companies literally refuse to pay for them
Healthcare being reduced to numbers and dollars, rather than being able to look at patients as human beings with extremely complex and unique medical needs that take time to treat effectively.
I briefly debated giving up practicing clinical medicine altogether, I was so frustrated with the healthcare system. But I hadn’t spent 9 years in medical training and 14 years in practice gaining this specialized knowledge to stop treating patients yet. So I chose the path that every other private practice endometriosis specialist ends up having to choose, which is to create my own small practice which is out of network with insurance systems. This means that I don’t directly take payment from insurance, but if patients have out of network benefits, we can submit receipts (called superbills) so patients can get reimbursed by their plan.
Since many patients also have what are called high-deductible plans, which means they have to have spent a certain amount on healthcare (their deductible) prior to the insurance covering treatment, they are often paying out of pocket for care anyway, even from in-network doctors!
But being outside of the insurance system allows me to spend plenty of time with patients (about an hour for new patients or surgical consults), so I can listen to their stories, understand their perspectives and goals, counsel them thoroughly about their treatment options, and come up with the plan that’s right for them. And since I will have a small practice, I can get patients in for office visits and surgeries WAY faster than the wait for traditional OB/Gyn practices, which is often several months!
So if you’re in the Eastern Pennsylvania, NJ, Delaware area (or beyond!), and are looking for a gynecologist / gyn surgeon that will:
Listen to you, and not rush you out the door or talk down to you in a paternalistic way
Respect your reproductive autonomy in terms of your wishes for tubal sterilization, hysterectomy, gender affirming care
Give you expert medical and surgical treatment of complex chronic pelvic pain, endometriosis, adenomyosis, fibroids
Provide comfortable care and a plan for pain relief for procedures like colposcopies, IUD insertions, endometrial biopsies, or hysteroscopies
Manage complicated issues such as PCOS, PMDD, perimenopause / menopause
Or just give routine preventative care like annual exams, Pap smears, breast cancer screening, birth control
In a comfortable, welcoming, relaxed environment - we’d be honored to take care of you at Thrive Gynecology! You can request an appointment through the website above, or call 484-897-7113. I’m looking forward to meeting some of you in person!
Phew - that was a lot of updates! One last comment on this Substack: I was brainstorming ways to make this more of an active community. One idea I’d like to try would be to have regular Zoom live get-togethers with paid subscribers, perhaps once a month? What do you think? I think it’d be fun to get to know each other, and people can ask me their questions (obviously no medical advice)! Free subscribers still get access to all the newsletters, but after 2 weeks, posts will be archived, and paid subscribers will also have access to search prior posts. We’ll give this a try, and see how it goes! Just let me know what you think.
Thank you for hanging in there for this bonkers summary of about 5 months’ worth of updates and behind-the-scenes work. I’m going to try to send out newsletters more regularly, at least once a month, so I can also respond to current events and send out more video and educational content! As always, just let me know in the comments if you have suggestions for videos or posts, or any other feedback!
Karen Tang, MD
u and t. swift dropping! so excited. Beyonće has dropped. Life is good!!!🐾🐾🐾