The Rhyme and Reason of Women’s Health Issues

Psychoanalyst Robert Nemiroff has a creative way of illustrating the female mid-life crisis. He uses the writings of women poets, including Anne Sexton, Adrienne Rich, Diane di Prima, Maxine Kumin and Edna St. Vincent Millay.

For example, Sexton’s poem, “Little Girl, My Stringbean, My Lovely Woman,” tells of a mother’s awe and wonder at seeing her daughter change into a woman.

Nemiroff will address the topic, “The Best of Your Life--More Than Just Coping,” using the poems rather than case studies to make his points at a symposium on women’s health, “Let’s Hear it for Health,” at the Sheraton Harbor Island East hotel on Friday and Saturday.

Issues ranging from nutrition and fitness to contraception will be covered at the conference by San Diego physicians and experts in the health field.

Dr. Ruth Westheimer, whose sex therapy programs are carried on TV and radio, will kick off the symposium at 8 p.m. Friday by bringing her own version of “Good Sex” to San Diego. Westheimer will discuss “Finding Practical Solutions to our Sexual Problems.”

“We’ll have a two-ring circus going on,” said Dr. Janet Schwartz, chairwoman of the symposium.

“We’ll have a series of little lectures on different topics--premenstrual syndrome, breast exams, psychological topics, along with mid-life issues.”

“The conference is oriented to patients rather than physician-oriented,” she said. “It is designed to improve the patient’s knowledge.” Similar conferences have been held for doctors, but, according to Schwartz, directing one toward women patients is unique.

More Than Gynecology

“Women’s medicine is more than gynecology,” she said. “This concept is based on the idea of family practice, which is geared to the whole human being, not to organ systems.”

In her talk on menopause and osteoporosis, Schwartz will discuss hormone replacement and its relation to osteoporosis, as well as the benefits of early detection of the degenerative bone disease.

“We hope to set facts straight with current information about hormone replacement,” she said. “So many women were scared because of statistics of increasing risk of cancer with estrogen replacement, but progesterone, along with estrogen, improves statistics on cancer.”

In almost all cases, she said, it can be determined ahead of time which women run the highest risk for osteoporosis. Risk has to do with bone mass, according to Schwartz, “petite, fair-skinned women, smokers, women who have a mother with osteoporosis, those who have over-active thyroids, women who have experienced a surgical menopause, and other factors contribute, including no exercise and low intake of calcium.”

Debra Stephenson, fitness consultant to Golden Door Health Spa, will discuss fitness, weight control and exercise techniques, including exercising at home and how to find a good instructor.

“Body awareness will be stressed,” she said, “incorporating breathing, alignment and body language.

“The emphasis is on low-impact aerobics, not on pain and gain, but more on safety and prevention. It used to be you beat yourself to death. Emphasis is now on correct body alignment and physiology--how your body moves, with no strain on lower back and knees.”

Dr. Paul Goldfarb, a surgical oncologist, will discuss breast care. “We’re more efficient in curing patients because of new screening techniques and because of breast self-exams,” he said. “With mammographs we’re picking up areas earlier than ever before, and we’re curing more patients.

“My challenge for the next years will be to try to learn how to treat non-invasive cancers.

“It used to be,” he said, “that by doing a mastectomy on non-invasive cancers the patient was guaranteed a 100% cure, but now the hope is for this rate of cure without a total mastectomy.

“The therapy in non-invasive breast cancer today is to take out the abnormal area and follow up with further mammographs, and not use radiation.

“But early detection is the key,” he said.

Dr. Katherine L. Sheehan, medical director of Planned Parenthood of San Diego and Riverside Counties, will discuss birth control methods and issues.

Mid-Life an Important Time

Nemiroff, co-author with Dr. Calvin Colarusso of “Adult Development” and “The Race Against Time,” said, “Development is lifelong, and adults have a great capacity for development throughout the life cycle,” but mid-life is a particularly important period.

Men’s and women’s mid-life crises are different, though, according to Nemiroff.

“It’s more complicated for women, as many things are, than for men,” he said. “Women have more crisis points. The time is not quiet and placid for women. Women have difficulties, concerns, turmoil--and this experience is even more complex than the crises many men face.”

Commenting on his use of the work of women writers, Nemiroff said: “This connection between writing and the life cycle goes back to the dawn of written language. Confucius’ writings, Japanese literature, the Bible, the Koran--all ancient literature has a concept of what a person should do at certain points of the life cycle.

“This ancient wisdom we, and others, now have brought to contemporary times, contemporary issues.”

Other physicians who will speak include Carol A. Hollan, on cosmetic surgery; Ruth Larson, on dermatology; Nancy S. Cetel, on premenstrual syndrome, and Oliver W. Jones on genetic profiling for today’s woman.

Luncheon speaker on Saturday will be Michael McGill, author of “The 40-50-Year-Old Male, Changing Him, Changing Her,” and “The McGill Report on Male Intimacy.” He will speak on “Why Men Don’t Love--and What You Can Do About It.”

Proceeds from the symposium will benefit the San Diego Battered Women’s Services, and the event is co-sponsored by the Center for Women’s Medicine and KFMB-TV (Channel 8).