Description: Co-host Ryan Piansky, a graduate student and patient advocate living with eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) and eosinophilic asthma, and co-host Holly Knotowicz, a speech-language pathologist living with EoE, who serves on APFED’s Health Sciences Advisory Council, speak with Jacqueline Gaulin, the Founder of Gastro Girl, a source of information for people living with various gastrointestinal disorders. In this episode, Ryan and Holly interview Jacqueline Gaulin about her career, how she started Gastro Girl, its podcast, and the partnership between Gastro Girl, the American College of Gastroenterology, and GI on Demand. Listen in for more information about this empowering resource for GI patients and their families. Disclaimer: The information provided in this podcast is designed to support, not replace the relationship that exists between listeners and their healthcare providers. Opinions, information, and recommendations shared in this podcast are not a substitute for medical advice. Decisions related to medical care should be made with your healthcare provider. Opinions and views of guests and co-hosts are their own. Key Takeaways: [:51] Ryan Piansky and co-host Holly Knotowicz welcome Jacqueline Gaulin, Founder of Gastro Girl, a patient-centered company that focuses on empowering individuals living with digestive health conditions through evidence-based information, resources, and access to GI experts to help people make informed healthcare decisions. [1:42] Holly thanks Jqcqueline for having APFED’s Executive Director, Mary Jo Strobel, as a guest on the Gastro Girl Podcast last fall. There is a link in the show notes. [2:07] Jacqueline started Gastro Girl as a blog, in 2007/2008 while working for a startup, trying to do great things for healthcare. She was charged with the Digestive Health channel. They needed content on living with disease and empowering patients. She created a persona, Gastro Girl, and started a blog around her. [2:41] Gastro Girl became a popular part of the site. The company was bought but Jacqueline retained the URL, Gastro Girl, and the persona. She engaged on Twitter and then got a job at the American College of Gastroenterology (ACG) where she dug into GI and learned the pain points from both the provider and patient sides. [3:09] Jacqueline saw that patients didn’t have the resources, access, and champions they needed so she created a company out of Gastro Girl to meet their needs. In 2019, Gastro Girl partnered with ACG to create a provider-focused platform, GI On Demand, that provides ACG members and their patients access to multi-disciplinary GI expertise. [4:02] Ryan tells about his experiences with APFED as a person living with Eosinophilic Esophagitis and Eosinophilic Asthma. His family is passionate about the patient experience for people with eosinophilic disorders. Ryan sees that Jacqueline is also passionate about empowering patients. [4:39] Jacqueline loves that patients and their loved ones are involved in advocacy. There is no better voice than those who walk on that health path. Jacqueline, as a child, saw her grandmother needing laxatives to feel better. Jacqueline didn’t understand. Then Jacqueline got a dog with digestive problems that needed veterinary help. [5:51] Jacqueline was fascinated by the whole connection between the digestive system and our overall health. When she started Gastro Girl she was going through a lot of trauma and lost a lot of weight. She was diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). [6:48] Gastro Girl brings together resources and information that run the gamut of digestive-health-related topics. It has resources and partners, like APFED, that cover all the areas of GI and bring the pieces together to help patients find the information they need, when and how they need it. [7:21] Holly tells how she searched symptoms online, was able to find Gastro Girl, and did a deep dive to navigate many areas. Holly also tells how she saw herself in patients’ symptoms while she was helping in an EoE clinic before she was diagnosed with it. [8:38] Gastro Girl has baseline content on what eosinophilic gastrointestinal disorders are and how they are diagnosed. Then it points to expert partners like APFED to speak to eosinophilic disorder topics and support in-depth. Gastro Girl focuses on symptoms and identifying diseases earlier to get into care quicker. [9:25] The Gastro Girl podcast and YouTube channel have episodes on EoE. The comments that come in on the videos, like “EOE 101,” Jacqueline says are mind blowing. People say the videos help them identify what possibly could be going on and get them to seek care without alarming them. [10:34] Gastro Girl offers evidence-based information and resources so that people know they can come to the site and find sites like APFED and the ACG that are trusted and credible, that will not send them down a rabbit hole and confuse them....
