Kristen wraps the nurse practitioner series and launches the founder series with Peri & Pause founder Jamie Gallagher, who shares what drew her into nursing, her critical care background, and why she became a nurse practitioner and later earned her DNP. Jamie explains how time limits, metrics, and fragmented, symptom-by-symptom care pushed her to rethink how midlife women are treated, especially after her own perimenopause experience revealed a major healthcare gap. She describes Peri & Pause’s model as relationship-driven, evidence-based whole-woman care through the perimenopause/menopause lens, including proactive prevention, collaboration with other clinicians, and referrals when needed. Jamie discusses misinformation and clinician shaming around hormones, the need for better clinician education, core values like integrity and humility, and her vision for continued growth to meet ongoing demand.

00:00 Podcast Welcome

01:09 Jamie Nursing Origins

02:47 Becoming Nurse Practitioner

04:46 Healthcare System Friction

08:27 Perimenopause Wake Up Call

11:13 Seeing the Bigger Pattern

13:11 Biggest Care Gap

14:20 Founding Peri and Pause

18:25 Building Patient First Practice

19:21 Whole Woman Care Approach

20:20 Coordinated Care Promise

20:46 Preventive Deep Dives

21:56 Proactive Treatment Mindset

22:19 Patient Wins That Matter

23:12 Word of Mouth Growth

24:12 Building a Mission Business

25:41 Imposter Syndrome and Connection

26:57 Misinformation and Clinician Shame

30:00 Why Education Still Lags

31:13 Values Purpose and The Future

36:45 Closing Thoughts and Wrap Up

In this Meet the Nurse Practitioner episode of Per and Pause, nurse practitioner Jaime Davis shares how her background in primary care and labor and delivery shaped her patient-centered approach and her focus on midlife women’s care. She discusses how perimenopause is often missed because symptoms can look like stress or anxiety, and highlights early signs such as brain fog, insomnia, word-finding difficulty, and menstrual changes influenced by hormone fluctuations like declining progesterone. Jaime recounts her own experience of years of severe pain after a traumatic C-section that was initially dismissed, later diagnosed as subcutaneous endometriosis and resolved with a short surgery, underscoring the importance of trusting your body and finding providers who listen. She explains her commitment to connecting symptoms, tailoring plans to patient goals, and helping women feel heard, supported, and empowered.

00:00 Meet Jaime Davis

00:54 Labor and Delivery Lessons

02:24 Path to Midlife Care

03:50 Why Perimenopause Gets Missed

06:47 Dismissed Pain Story

11:08 Finding the Real Cause

13:29 What Listening Really Means

15:27 Beyond Rigid Guidelines

16:56 Early Perimenopause Clues

17:06 Brain Fog Sleep Anxiety

19:46 Symptoms Are Connected

21:29 Menopause Education Gaps

23:45 Care After Dismissal

25:10 The Peri Pause Experience

26:15 Closing Thanks Farewell

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This podcast exists to normalize, explain, and elevate the midlife healthcare conversation—so women feel informed, believed, and empowered to demand better care for their bodies and lives.

Visit https://periandpause.com for more info

On Peri and Pause the podcast, host interviews women’s health nurse practitioner Amanda Maingi, who shares why she chose women’s health, her education at Georgetown, and how menopause and perimenopause received limited focus in training despite women spending a third of life in this stage. Amanda describes noticing gaps while working in a fast-paced traditional GYN clinic, where time constraints and protocol-driven care could miss the “whole woman” experience. She contrasts younger patients’ typically more straightforward visits with the complexity of midlife, highlighting under-research, life stressors, and chronic conditions. Common perimenopause symptoms often mislabeled as anxiety or depression include sleep disruption, heart palpitations, brain fog, irritability, overwhelm, and feeling out of control. The episode emphasizes validation, individualized high-touch care beyond algorithms, and addresses misconceptions that hormone therapy is inherently dangerous, stressing risk-benefit tailoring and comprehensive evaluation.

00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro

00:53 Why Womens Health

02:17 Academic Journey Highlights

04:09 Menopause Education Gap

05:24 Clinic Reality and Missing Care

08:57 Midlife vs Younger Patients

13:14 Symptoms Mistaken for Anxiety

17:43 Beyond Protocols Individual Care

19:34 Patch And Pill Problem

21:21 Telehealth Versus High Touch

22:56 Layered Whole Woman Care

26:03 Validation First Visit

28:42 Hormone Therapy Myths

30:07 New Patient Expectations

31:53 Outro And Sign Off

32:23 Recording The Closing Script

34:16 Final Takeaway Message

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This podcast exists to normalize, explain, and elevate the midlife healthcare conversation—so women feel informed, believed, and empowered to demand better care for their bodies and lives.

Visit https://periandpause.com for more info