In The Game Podcast
Each week, Master Connector Sarah Maxwell sits down with incredible people and extracts the stories of their lives. Using her Neuro-psychology background, she delves into the DREAMS they had as a child and then weaves them back to the present moment. Who have they become? How have the dreams they had for their life realised themselves? How have they overcome challenges? What matters to them most NOW?These conversations are gripping and transformative, for both host and listener. Sit back, relax and enjoy!
In The Game Podcast
It's Now All about Helping Women in Menopause for GP Dr Nancy Momoff
Ever wondered how understanding your hormones could change your life? Meet Dr. Nancy Momoff, a passionate Brisbane-based GP who turned her personal experiences with perimenopause into a mission to transform women's health. In our conversation, Dr. Momoff reveals how addressing hormonal imbalances offers a new perspective on treating symptoms often misattributed to stress. Her journey has led to the creation of a dedicated online resource that empowers women with up-to-date information on hormonal health.
We discuss:
• Personal experiences that shaped Dr. Momoff’s career in women’s health
• The importance of addressing menopause and its varied symptoms
• The role of GPs in supporting patients through hormonal changes
• Work-life balance as a working mother in the medical field
• Advocating for women’s health equality and informed choices
Be transported through the adventurous story of a doctor who broke free from the traditional medical path by merging a love for travel with medical practice. From serving as a ship's physician to exploring medical roles around the globe, this journey highlights the personal growth and adaptability found outside the typical hospital setting. Insights from life in South Africa to settling in Australia underscore the importance of choosing environments that align with personal values of warmth and safety.
Balancing a career and family is a universal challenge, and we explore how women, especially those navigating menopause, can succeed by redefining career paths to suit their happiness and flexibility. Through personal anecdotes, we celebrate the stories from the In the Game Podcast series, showcasing female trailblazers who inspire by pursuing their dreams on their terms. Listen in to discover how community support and sharing real experiences can empower incredible transformations.
The Podcast's 7th Season
Welcome to In the Game, a podcast where we aim to touch, move and inspire you to what's possible in life. My name is Sarah Maxwell and I am a self-proclaimed relationship engineer. Ever since I was a little girl, I was curious about how people work and how they interact with one another. With a degree in biopsychology representing my country of Canada in beach volleyball. With a degree in biopsychology representing my country of Canada in beach volleyball, retiring from sport into mindset and purpose coaching, I now spend my days running Chatta-box Media, where we aim to story-tell for brands through the medium of podcasting, all while raising an eight-year-old daughter with my partner of 24 years. We are now in season seven of this podcast, featuring a special series on women called who Knew that Was Work aimed at young women who want to broaden their horizon when it comes to career choosing.
Go deeper into the pod and discover incredible stories of changemakers who manifest their dream lives. Gain tangible tools to apply to your own life by scrolling back to that initial season where we were more workbook focused. Have a laugh when we initially were coined the Nat and Sarah show, when my five-time Olympian partner, natalie Cook, and I bantered and had loads of fun interviewing and discovering our common passion individuals who rise to the occasion in life. Okay, now it's time to dive on in to this episode.
Ge...
Hello, my name is Audrey Karen Arthilka and I'm seven years old. I'm Australian by Australian heritage. We wish to acknowledge the land on which this podcast is being recorded, minjim country, the place of the blue water lilies. We are inspired by the world's oldest living culture and seek wisdom from the people who came before us, the Jagra and Turrbal people. We pay our deepest respects to the tradition of storytelling when we share people's stories and we extend our respect. All Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first Australians, peoples as the first Australians.
Speaker 2:Welcome to In the Game, a podcast where we aim to touch, move and inspire you to what's possible in life. My name is Sarah Maxwell and I am a self-proclaimed relationship engineer. Ever since I was a little girl, I was curious about how people work and how they interact with one another. With a degree in biopsychology, representing my country of Canada in beach volleyball, retiring from sport into mindset and purpose coaching, I now spend my days running Chattabox Media, where we aim to storytell for brands through the medium of podcasting, all while raising an eight-year-old daughter with my partner of 24 years. We are now in season seven of this podcast, featuring a special series on women called who Knew that Was Work aimed at young women who want to broaden their horizon when it comes to career choosing. Go deeper into the pod and discover incredible stories of changemakers who manifest their dream lives. Gain tangible tools to apply to your own life by scrolling back to that initial season where we were more workbook focused. Have a laugh when we initially were coined the Nat and Sarah show, when my five-time Olympian partner, natalie Cook and I bantered and had loads of fun interviewing and discovering our common passion individuals who rise to the occasion in life.
Speaker 2:Okay, now it's time to dive on in to this episode. How lucky am I to sit down with Dr Nancy Momoff, a Brisbane-based GP specializing in women's health and menopause. Hailing from South Africa, she has been a practicing GP since 2003 and worked in a variety of environments, including as a ship's physician, an expedition medicine doctor in Ecuador, and as a GP in South Africa, the UK and Australia. She has a wide variety of interests, from dermatology to medicinal cannabis, yet her passions have always lied in women's health and wellness. Nancy is a very creative human and can be found painting in watercolor, sitting down to write a novel or taking bushwalks after dropping her two daughters off to school. She is one of those well-rounded working mothers.
Speaker 2:Thank you, nancy, for taking some time to speak to us at In the Game Podcast for our special series on who Knew that Was A Job aimed at young women who are figuring out their career paths. So you ready to delve into your own story, nancy? Absolutely. Thanks, sarah. So Nancy got all pretty for us today, you guys, so this is exciting. Nancy and I are friends I thought I should announce that, so I am lucky enough to get to watch this balanced woman, like I mentioned, in real life and you've been really working on your Dr Nancy Momoff website and it's just launched and you've really found your groove, specializing in female health with that special focus on menopause. What has it been like, nancy, narrowing in on what you are most passionate about in medicine?
Speaker 3:It's been a pretty exciting time.
Speaker 3:I mean, I've always had different interests, so that's the one thing that I really really liked about being a general practitioner is that, as time has gone on, if I've enjoyed one thing, I've kind of followed that route for a while.
Speaker 3:Then if my interests have changed, I've gone down something else.
Speaker 3:And I think it's really been in the last six months or so that like the perimenopause and menopausal side of things has really kind of come to the surface for me, and I think that's also because of where I am in my life, being perimenopausal, and a lot of these things really started to resonate with me and I started listening to a lot of podcasts and reading a lot of information from coming out from the States and from the UK and it just it was like something just clicked in me.
Speaker 3:So I decided to go down the route of like making my own website so there could be a place where people could go for the most up-to-date information. And yeah, it's just been amazing, I would say if I was to look, say like, look for one word, it would probably be life-changing, and not just for me, but like for my well, not just for my patients, but for myself as well, because it is just, it's such an honor just having these women come to me and just, you know, giving me their whole stories and just just really wanting help and I know that I can give them the options that they're looking for, which is just it's amazing.
Speaker 2:And would you say prior to this, they would come in for help in the like before you were perimenopausal, for example, did women come in and did you? Did you ever feel that you weren't sure how to help them?
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely, because a lot of the women around this age are coming in with anxiety and mental health issues and you're like, okay, well, you're just stressed because you're a mother, you've got a lot on your plate, you're working really hard, so obviously you're going to be anxious or depressed, and so most of the time, the first thing that we would reach for is like an antidepressant or I'd send them off to see a psychologist. But realistically, I mean a lot of the times it's their hormones. So now that we can rebalance that, they like improve and so many other symptoms improve. So, instead of me sending them off to see a cardiologist for their palpitations and a gastro because of their bowel issues, like a lot of the symptoms, it's just like this one thing that we need to rebalance and it just like it solves the problem. It's amazing. It's amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's interesting as you even are sharing that I'm starting to think that, a GP, in your role in a community, it's like you're the pulse of a community and what's going on and of course you're supposed to. They expect in some way that you know all the answers, but often, yeah, you're referring them onto other people because there's all these symptoms. But now you can be at the heart of some of these solutions and we are are gonna get into your back life. But now I'm getting excited about this topic. So what's it like in your role, having worked for so long with people, being able to actually be at the forefront of such change, like with your patient, versus having to refer them onward all the time?
Speaker 3:Yeah, for me it's like really exciting. I feel like I'm suddenly empowered for myself and for my patients, which just feels so good. Um, I love having these tools in which to manage or help to manage their symptoms and help to like like just to know what to do with them really. So I it's a really good space to be in. There's a lot of amazing women around me that are also helping to support.
Speaker 3:So it can sometimes be a bit daunting being on the forefront of things and, you know, sometimes you like almost like doubt yourself. You know there's almost like a little bit of gaslighting going on saying, you know, am I in the right, because so many people are still saying something else? But then you go back to the research and you're saying, no, actually this is what the research is showing now, so we are right and we should be giving women choices. So, yeah, so exciting, daunting, it's just yeah. I think for me it has given me like a news desk for life, like just going to work, and I just feel like so excited and passionate about what I'm doing now. I just yeah, it's really awesome.
Speaker 2:I love that, and now I want to sort of go back and discover what led there. You know how you even got to this place, where you have this zest for life in your forties, and so you know you're ahead of the curve in what you're doing right now and yet set the scene for us back in the day in south africa. How did you even decide to become a doctor?
Speaker 3:well, I was one of the brainy kids at school, so I think it's kind of yeah, especially in south africa, if you are a clever kid, you kind of are you know they expect you to go into something like law or medicine. But I was also the kid that people would come to to ask for like questions, like anything health related or anything sex related, which was really ironic because I was a super late bloomer. But I seem to have all the answers to these things. So I really did like. I knew like from a really early age that I really loved helping people and I and I think I had a gift for it even then. So I knew that medicine is what I wanted to do. I think I've had gone down the alternative route. I would have gone into special effects makeup, which I also thought was super cool. But yeah, here I am in medicine.
Speaker 2:So there's a few very different choices, nancy. It's especially or medicine, what? How come it tipped you over being a doctor?
Speaker 3:Oh, look, I think, um, I think my my life as a kid and my mom being a single mom, I always knew that I also wanted to be financially independent. I never wanted to rely on anyone else, so I knew I needed a career that would get me there as well. So medicine ticked a lot of boxes for me and and yeah. So when I went into it I didn't really have a clear idea of what I wanted to do. On the other side, I thought I would just, you know, see my options. When I was studying I really was drawn to things like obs and gyne and I thought that I would go into that sort of realm. But then, I don't know, there was just something about all the specialities which just seemed a bit too narrow for me and I just couldn't imagine my life as doing one thing forever. So I suppose I just kind of fell into GP being a GP after I left and in South Africa you didn't have to specialize into being a GP. If you didn't go into any sort of other speciality, you could just work as a GP straight away. And that's what I started to do. And what I realized then over time is that I could mold my work into what I found interesting. So I would do more dermatology and I would do more excisions and skin cancer medicine and I did some aesthetics and I could do fillers and Botox, and so it's been from that point of view, it's really been good.
Speaker 3:And the other thing is, even when I was a kid, I always had the sense that I'd be a mom and I knew I wanted to be there for my kids. So like, even as a kid, I remember like writing lists of things that I liked and I don't like to show my kids. It was just like I was like eight years old then, so just like it was bizarre. So again, I wanted a career where it wouldn't be that all consuming, that it would take me away from having a family and being there for my children. So I think again, in that way, being a GP is just the perfect balance. I can work as much as I want, as little as I want, and I can go there and be there for the kids whenever they need me. So that's been really, really good.
Speaker 2:And so when you were young, obviously you were a thinker. As a young, you know as an eight year old what did you think being a doctor was going to be like that? It's not.
Speaker 3:I think at the time I might have thought it was going to be like quite easy. Like once you kind of got into it, quite exciting, like every day would be different. But realistically, like once you get into it, you realize that there's a lot of bureaucracy, there's a lot of it's really long hours, like as you start going into like internship and all of the studying years. You're just exhausted all the time. And I remember coming out of internship and I was like I actually don't want to be a doctor anymore.
Speaker 1:I'm too tired.
Speaker 3:I'm just, I hate this. I really do hate this. I just this is not for me. But the thing is thing is you've spent what seven years of your life studying to be this and like, what do you do now? Do you start again? Do you try to use medicine to do something else? And and I knew I was good with people, so I just, so I just persisted really and I just thought, okay, well, what I really want to do is I want to go traveling. So I went to do traveling and I went and I did some other jobs in between that like being a ship's position and be going on an expedition. So those sorts of things were kind of like feeding these other parts of me, that that needed to grow.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I mean, just bring me back. So when you were growing up you didn't think it would be really grueling to be a doctor, because I watched all those TV shows and it looked pretty terrible, with no sleep to me. But did you not know that in South Africa you hadn't watched the shows?
Speaker 3:No, no, it's not that we hadn't. I mean, we had all those shows there. I just I just thought that they it still looked exciting enough that the that the hardship was worth it Got it. But when I was in it I didn't see that, I was just tired. It was questionable.
Speaker 2:It was questionable exactly. Oh my gosh. So that's actually really cool that you said you could match this desire like for adventure and travel. Was that hard actually? Once you had your degree, Could you easily do these roles, or was it hard to get that?
Speaker 3:No. So at the time we were really lucky coming out of South Africa. We had a very good degree so we could easily find work doing different things around the world. So there was a lot of jobs going for physicians. I could go and work. I worked at something called the RMO or Resident Medical Officer in the UK for a while where you actually live on-site in these private hospitals and you are on call for like a week at a time.
Speaker 3:So there are lots of different things. You could locum around the world, like the expedition stuff. So there's a lot of different things you can do. Yeah, and some people do that like long term. I mean, here you can do. There's a lot of the flying doctors, sorts of things. But again, if you want to have a family, so like even the ship's life, it's an amazing life but it really is like an alternate reality. You're on this boat with 5000 people and it's like the rest of the world doesn't exist, because you're just everything happens on the ship and you just you can't do that long term, not if you want like a stable life. So yeah, so ultimately I made the decision that I wanted to settle down and luckily I found somebody to do that with, and then yeah we ended up in Australia.
Speaker 3:You know this, so we, so I was in South Africa originally, um, but because of everything that was going on there, I felt and I also, like, really wanted to travel. I really didn't think that that's where I'd end up, so I started traveling. I ended up in the UK for a while. That's where I met my husband, paul, who was also from South Africa, and although we liked England in terms of, like, the travel to Europe et cetera, it's just the like, the cold and just the expense of all the places that you had to live out of london and it was just too hard and we always knew we wanted to live somewhere warm but safe, and australia, just like, felt like the natural option. There was a lot of south africans that were immigrating to australia, so, yeah, that's where we that's where we end up got it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know that. I knew that, so. So you've been here for quite some time and in private practice as a GP. What would you say makes you a great GP? And you may find this answer hard, but I know you are, because you see patients all the time, like there's people that come out of the woodwork and they love you. Why do you think?
Speaker 3:I think I think I listen well.
Speaker 3:I think a lot of people will like let patients speak for a little while but then cut them off and just immediately interject with what they want to say.
Speaker 3:I think I let people tell their story and I really am invested in trying to give them like the best care, give them all the options that are available. And and I love the I love the puzzle of GP because everybody comes in and it's like a whole set of clues and they just like put it out there for you and you have to sit there and you have to piece this puzzle together. And it's also listening to cues that are not obvious. So somebody will come in and say, oh, I just need a medical certificate for being unwell, and then you can see something in their face or you can hear something in their voice and you say what's really going on? And then there's like this whole story that comes out. So I think that's what makes me a good GP. I think the listening and, yeah, just like really wanting the best for them, for my patients, yeah, and it's no small thing.
Speaker 2:Sometimes we call them soft skills, and I don't know if that's the right word, because it's. It's actually so important and I'm so glad you brought that up is what makes you a great GP. So what do you wish you'd known as a young doctor that you now know?
Speaker 3:that you now know Well, I would say that it gets better. If I was to talk to myself as a young doctor, I'd say just hang in there, it gets better, and you can really shape it to be what you want it to be, and that's the great thing about medicine is that there are so many options and you can just keep changing and reinventing yourself into something that fits. And it is such a dynamic and fast-moving career that there's so much going on all the time, and the information is changing and there's technology, so it's a good place to be. I would say to me, though, if I was thinking about getting into it for the money, I would think again, because there's definitely easier ways to make money. But yeah, in terms of enjoyment and, just like you know, helping people and having that as like your main purpose in life, I think it's definitely worth it as being a doctor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm glad you brought up the money actually, because I think there is a perception of it's worth the gruelingness, because I'll be, you know, a millionaire if I'm a doctor. So I'm glad you you're kind of addressing that, yeah, but you did mention you know, even as an eight-year-old you wanted to be a mother. So can you describe how you found balance in your career, in your family life? How have you set it up?
Speaker 3:yeah. So obviously in early in my career I was working the same like normal hours. I was doing like five days a week and some weekends. But then when I became a mom I went to, I went back to work part-time and then mentally I had the thought that well, eventually I'll just go back full-time, because that's what you do, you have a career and then I'm like why.
Speaker 3:You know, why do I need to go back full-time? Yeah, I would make more money, but at the same time, what am I giving up? So I spent, like, obviously, when the girls were little, I would spend the days that I wasn't working with them, and then now they're both at school and I just have these two days a week. So I work three days a week, two days a week just to do things for myself. And I do yoga, we go walking together, I paint occasionally, I go to see movies, I go shopping and just like just doing stuff for myself, which I think is amazing.
Speaker 3:And you know, a lot of the times we are banging on all the time about this work life balance, but how many of us actually do it? Because it is a sacrifice. You know the sacrifices that you are going to make less money, and I mean realistically. There are careers that you can't do less than five days, because often then they give you all that workload in the three or four days that you work. You know which is just awful. So I am lucky in that. You know I can. I can do that. I can just work less and still still be good. Yeah, it's still really good for me.
Speaker 2:And I love that point. Yes, it's a sacrifice, but what I love about what you've just said is that you are willing to make it, that you understood that this was what was important to you and again, I think it takes women like you to forge that path, to show that it's possible to show what it looks like, because often people see the sacrifice is too big, but they don't see the reward. Yeah, and watching how you do life, like what you've described you paint, you write, you write, you read, you walk, like these are all the things that really the doctor ordered when it comes to our wellness and you're living it and so to me that's another sort of tick in your favor in terms of what makes you a good GP. It's like you're actually doing the things that we're probably wanting to suggest to patients. So thank you for that.
Speaker 2:I want to give you one more chance here to speak about. You know, the twists and turns of your career have landed you in this current place where you're getting to help people with menopause, these women. What do you hope for? Menopause and women? What if you could like, if you could sort of dream for a second? What do you hope to achieve? And maybe you just hope it for the whole of women in menopause and doesn't just have to be your role. But yeah, what do you hope for?
Speaker 3:Yeah, what I hope is that women know what's available to them. I just want them to know their choices in terms of treatment, know what it means to be menopausal for the rest of their lives and what the potential consequences of that are, and just to have the freedom to make their own choice for themselves. So if they don't want to go down the hormonal replacement route, that's absolutely fine, but I want them to have the choice of that. It's just an educating. I just want women to be educated. I want them to have the same level of respect as men do in society.
Speaker 3:You know, why are we so easily handing out Viagra but then, whenever a woman is complaining about sexual dysfunction, we're just patting her on the head and saying it's fine, just get on with it. You know, have a bit of vaginal moisturizer. It's just not fair, I think. You know. I just really look for and hope for equality in medicine for both men and women, and I just hope that more doctors will come to the party in terms of looking at the research now, seeing where we're at with perimenopause, because it honestly it affects what? 50, 51% of the population and it's going to affect every single woman on the planet. You know if you're lucky to live this long. So it's not, it's not like a small. It's not a small problem, it's a very, very big problem. So that's that's what. That's what my hope would be that women are listened to, that they're taken seriously, that we're not, we're not minimizing them, and if they're asking for help, they should be getting help and you.
Speaker 2:you said the word coming to the party and and I just had to mention that, nancy is the the friend you want coming to your party and your retreats, because she says things like vaginal moisturizer and no one bats an eye, I mean, and there's many more funny things that she says. So Nancy's the friend you want. But of course I've got to get myself back on track, because it's really important here that we speak to young women. So you have two daughters. I know they're not at the age yet of choosing career, but soon enough they will be. So if you were, what would you say to young women who are wondering what to choose as a career?
Speaker 3:I would say don't let anything box you in in terms of what you think you can do, honestly, as a woman. Now you have the whole world at your fingertips. You can decide to do whatever you want to do and if you, just because you choose one thing, doesn't mean that that's what you have to stay in, so you can use those skills to do something else. Or you can just study again and do something else. And that's the amazing thing about living in Australia, I find, is that there's so many opportunities to study and do different things and even if you study one thing, you can use it to do something else.
Speaker 3:So I would say, just explore what you want to do. Like, just do what you're passionate about. Really, I think that would be the most important thing I'll tell my girls is that just do what makes you happy. I don't care if they're lawyers or doctors or you know anything that, yeah, I don't want them to be like working ridiculous hours if they don't have to. I would much rather them finding some sort of work-life balance and doing stuff that they enjoy. So, yeah, that would probably be my, my conversation with with young women and with my kids.
Speaker 2:And did you, because you do have a lot of talents. Did you ever consider different professions?
Speaker 3:So, like, as I said, the special effects makeup, that would have been one of them. What else did I think about doing? Honestly, I can't even think Book writing you were going to write a book, oh.
Speaker 2:Until you got angry at ChatGPT.
Speaker 3:That was just a little sideline project. I thought I thought writing roman like comedy, romance novels would have been my new thing. And then that's just when chat gpt came out and I got so cross. I was like I can't believe this computer is writing this better than me. I was like no thanks, so um, so I'll just go back to watercolor.
Speaker 2:Oh, my gosh and you're not ready to sell your artwork at the local fair yet.
Speaker 3:Not yet, no, so I just enjoy doing it for myself, or I do it for the kids. They asked me to paint certain things and I painted for them.
Speaker 2:So, yeah.
Speaker 3:I enjoy it from that point of view. But yeah, I mean, there's so much you can do and so many things you can explore, especially if you've got the time. I think a lot of the time we're, especially as women. You know we're balancing work, we're balancing kids. Sometimes you've got older parents. You know there's just so much going on. You're looking after the house.
Speaker 3:You keep thinking, oh, when I'm retired, when I'm retired, I'll do this stuff. You know, when I have more time, what if we don't get there? Or what if you're so tired when you get there you don't want to do any of those things, you know? Or what if you're then too old to travel? Or what if you get sick with something? It's just like you know this is the time to do it, and I feel as like going into perimenopause, menopause. I like the fact that it's got that word pause in it, because I think that we should be pausing and we should be thinking you know what next? What does my life look like now and what do I want to make it look like? I think we've got this amazing opportunity as women and we can.
Speaker 2:We can be something else and we can, we can change, which which I think is really exciting yeah, such good advice for young, you know, and older, because that idea of pausing and realizing that you can keep recreating your career, that later in life too, maybe it's time to have another pause and think about what matters to us and, yeah, what we want to put out into the world. So, nancy, I think your life is a true demonstration of all of these things that you've just said. So it's not lip service. I see it every day. I really wanted to have this conversation with you for ages, because I get to enjoy what you're sharing on a walk. So thank you for sharing it to a wider audience and congratulations for really putting yourself out there to help more people.
Speaker 3:Oh, thanks, sarah, it's been awesome out there to help more people. Oh, thanks, sarah, it's been awesome.
Speaker 2:Thank you for joining us on another episode of In the Game Podcast. We hope we have inspired you with these real lived experiences of incredible women navigating their careers their way. We are all about sharing around here, so if you know someone who would benefit from listening to this podcast or this show in general, do it now and share the love. Pressing follow on the pod makes a massive difference. Taking two minutes to rate us for Season 7 means that more people will get to hear these stories, which will widen the impact. Join us next time for more captivating stories of female trailblazers who are leaving behind clues for that next generation of women and girls.