The conversations happening in your treatment room, and how to support them

Your regular patient is in for her appointment. Somewhere between the consult and the treatment, she mentions she hasn't slept properly in months. Her shoulder has been stiff since winter. She's been short with her kids and can't work out why.
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If that sounds familiar, you're not imagining it. For many women in their 40s and 50s, your clinic is where these conversations happen first. That was the starting point for our recent Fresh Health evening in Melbourne. Fresh Members came together with two women's health physiotherapists, Fresh Health's Dr Izzy Sillar and Fresh Ambassador Kate Moran.

Our speakers described a patient most Members recognised straight away. A local mum around 47. Peak of her career, teenagers at home, pickleball twice a week. One morning she wakes up with a sore shoulder. She hasn't lifted anything heavy. She rests it, assumes it'll settle, and it doesn't.
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Within weeks, she can't sleep on that side. Then she stops going to social sport. Then the poor sleep starts to wear down her mood and her confidence at work. A sore shoulder has turned into something much bigger.
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Too often, each of those symptoms is treated on its own, making it harder to connect the dots. Dr Izzy shared that during her own medical placement in 2018, menopause got a single training session. Unless a GP has chosen to focus on women's health, they may not have had much more.

Where clinical meets aesthetic

Fibroblasts are the cells that build and maintain collagen, and they also play a part in healing and immune function. Oestrogen helps keep them working, and as levels fall, the body makes less collagen and breaks down more of what's already there.
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So before planning aesthetic treatments, Dr Izzy looks at the whole patient: how she's sleeping, whether she's run down or anxious, and how she feels overall. When a practitioner puts health ahead of the next booking, the trust in that relationship goes up, not down.

Where to start this week

A year ago, "women's health" and "aesthetic clinic" rarely came up in the same sentence. During our event in Melbourne, the room was swapping stories about patients who opened up to them before anyone else.
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You don't need a new service menu to begin. Start with one extra question in your next consult: "How are you sleeping?" Listen to the answer. If it opens a door, you now know who to refer to, and what to look out for. If you're a Fresh Health Member, you already have doctors with a special interest in women's health behind you.

Bring women's health into your business

Your treatment chair is often the first place a woman feels comfortable enough to say something's not right. Fresh Health makes sure that moment leads somewhere.

You stay the patient's point of contact, with telehealth support from doctors who have a special interest in women's health. Fresh Health Members also get clinical protocols, training, launch marketing assets, and a community working through it alongside them.