Her Discussions by Dr Faye - Women’s Health Expert: It Took Me 30+ Years To Realise This

Episode Date: September 17, 2025

Dr Nighat has never had an easy path.Born in Pakistan, she immigrated to the UK at 9 years old. Since then, she’s been pushing against barriers: in her community, in medicine, and in society at large.However, she turned that resistance into purpose. As a GP, broadcaster, and author, she’s dedicated her career to breaking the silence and challenging the taboos around women’s health, from periods to menopause, making sure no woman feels ashamed of her body.She embodies resilience, rebellion, and a refusal to apologise for being authentic. Her mission is clear: to empower women of every age to approach their health with confidence, knowledge, and freedom from stigma.

My mother was horrified when I started my periods. I was 12 years old with blood running down my legs. And I genuinely thought, I'm dying. There's no words in our Punjabi language. There's no words for vulva, vagina. The word for menopause is bungee. And the literal translation is the age of despair. Dr. Nagat has been instrumental in shifting the stereotypes and taboos around women's health.

We're off on a back foot as women just because of our biology. Only 1% of global GDP is put on women's health care. care. Think about adenomysis, endometriosis, PCOS, menopause, pregnancy as a female trainee, I had a miscarriage. And I had to use my annual leave. My first experience of actual racism towards me was if I wasn't so resilient and so balshy, I think it might have actually broken my spirit. What I've realized is that's the only skill I ever want to teach my kids and my boys. That's just giving me goosebumps. Thank you so, so much for clicking on this episode. Before we get into the conversation, if you could do a huge favour and click the subscribe button

just down there, or if you're listening, leave a five-star review. It really will help us come back for season two and bring even bigger and better guests to spread the conversation around women's health even further. Thank you. Before there was books and TV and working as a doctor. You were just a little girl. I believe came over from Pakistan when you were nine. About nine, yeah. Can you tell me a little bit about what it was like coming here at that age? My earliest memory is coming down the stairs on Heathrow Airport, but I didn't know as Heathrow

airport. I was wearing a summer dress and flip-flops. And my father had said to my mother, we're going to go to Pakistan. From Pakistan, from Pakistan, we're going to go to England. My mother, by the way, I have to sort of caveat with the fact that she had this lovely I feel this lovely, idyllic life. She's the daughter of a head teacher. She's one of 12 siblings.

And we lived on a farm. So both of my grandparents, sets of grandparents on both sides, were subsidy farmers. So you grew what you needed for profit. And the rest of it was for family consumption, which is the way that a lot of things still happen in Pakistan. And I just remember running through cotton fields, picking cotton with my grandmother in blistering heat,

you know, monsoon summer. droughts, sometimes not having enough, sometimes having, you know, it was either feast or famine. And I don't mean that in the literal term, but usually that's how we lived. Lived in sort of, I particularly thought that I was a boy and lived in this sort of with a lot of cousins who were male. My mum was like, this is amazing. She was a bit sort of young. She was 17 when she got married.

So she had me a year into her marriage And then two of my brothers came along I'm one of five siblings And my father was like We're going to go to England And it's beautiful, wall to wall sunshine And there's luscious green Her Fields

So that was like the first mistruth That I think I was sold as a nine-year-old Came biblical rain Stood on the stairs And drenched through My mother's livid She's got three kids with her. And she, you know, this is April though.

So to be fair, she thought it would be lovely and sunny. But that was my introduction to the UK. And I absolutely loved it. And came, got collected by members of the community and lived in Cheshem. And I still live in Chesham. It's to me the most glorious, wonderful place. And I can't ever imagine being anywhere else. Nice.

And somewhere that you called home, which is. Yeah. Yeah. And it was just this liberation because when I was in Pakistan, there were lots of things that I rebelled against. So I couldn't go to the local school. It was about a five-mile walk. And my grandmother was petrified that we would get kidnapped as girls.

So she would shave our heads. That's why I thought I was a tomboy. I learned how to climb trees. My now husband, my wonderful husband, husband. He, I remember playing with him in the sugar canes. He's about nine years older than me. And I literally lived the life of a tomboy because I thought that was it. And I desperately wanted to be like my male cousins. There's a real sadness that later on I grew to learn this was because I was the first born. And so the first girl. And my grandfather bless him. And this is

just, I think, a cultural thing more than anything. He lamented that it wasn't a boy. So I grew up with this thing going, I've got to be better than the boys because I'm a girl. And I've got to be better than that. And so that level of sort of patriarchy and misogyny was instilled from quite a young age quite quickly. And so when I came here, the first thing my dad was like, go, go to school. And I was like, I can go to school. That is something you're not going to stop me from doing because I got a beating for wanting and asking to chase my cousins as they went to school, my male cousins. And I was told, no, you can't.

You've got to do the chores. You've got to learn how to do this. You've got to come and work in the fields with us. And it was just this liberation. So I'm so grateful for everything I've been given and worked towards when I came here. And then when you came here, I read. that you then became the interpreter for your family. You were the first person to learn how to speak English.

I'd imagine that's a huge pressure as well as being a privilege. It was a massive privilege. I don't ever remembering it being a pressure when I was younger because I'm the eldest of five siblings. And I've got incredibly lovely and kind siblings. And we're very, very close. And my father is an imam. So we grew up essentially within the...

the mosque community. We grew up with our community, our Pakistani community. And as it always happens when you're an immigrant family is that the first, the oldest, will always learn English. So yeah, I will not lie. I did translate at parents' evening for my parents. It was a brilliant child. I told my father, she says I'm amazing, dad. And I then became sort of the go-to person to translate things at the GP surgery. So I was translating miscarriages or urinary tract infections or heart attack symptoms or stroke symptoms, not really knowing at the age of about 12 at that time that that's what I'm translating for members of my community. And it's only when I sort of now I'm 41. I'm a perimenopausal woman and I'm sort of thinking to myself, God, I'm still translating the same things for my community.

And so you have to change that. And so if I can move that dial slightly for my community, I'd be a very happy woman. And would you say there was any point where you realized that there were taboo topics about women's bodies that weren't being discussed? Yeah, always, always. Right from the start, not even women's body, my body. My mother was horrified when I started my periods and not horrified in the fact that I'd started them, but she didn't know how to communicate with that with me. And so I, you I was a 12 years old with blood running down my legs, absolutely mortified. I genuinely thought I'm dying, I'm bleeding down my leg. And I don't ever remember having any lessons at school about it. Because I think I had started periods even before those lessons had started at school.

And so my mother was just like, here you go. She gave me the thickest, biggest white pads, which she used and said, you need to. use those, that's it, don't talk to you about it, and then shower. And these are the rituals that you do. You're not allowed to go into the mosque anymore because that's actually a really way of, not because it's sinful, but a way to say, look, you need to rest and you need to allow your body to rest. And in Islam, there's a real big priority about looking after women. And so when they're menstruating, when they're pregnant, you're not expected to fast at that time. You're meant to conserve your energy as much as possible. And so there were those sort of, oh, okay, this is the next phase of my life.

It was only when I was about 15 that I realized that there were blinking pads with wings. I was like, what? No one told me about pad with wings. And it's because those horrible pads were like always giving me abrasions. I'd leak. I'd have heavy periods. I didn't know I had PCOS. So even with my body, I didn't know.

and it was just like, this is shameful. And there's no words in our Punjabi language for a lot of our body. So if you're talking about breasts, it's chatty. Chati is like a word that just basically says chest. It doesn't really signify breasts at all. There's no words for vulva, vagina, ovaries. The womb is Bacidani, which is translated as a place for babies. So actually, well, what about if you don't want babies?

So that's that initial thing. And the word for menopause was just something not even discussed. So we have some words we know. In Punjabi, it's Kapri Khatamogu, which is you're off the rag. In Urdu is Banji, you're barren now. You're in the metaphors. Oh, God. You're barren.

And the literal translation in Arabic is the age of despair. And so you grow up with these words, not knowing these words about your body, the taboo areas about your bodies. Everything's hypersexualized. talking about your vagina, which is actually the inside bit, you didn't even know about the vulva, because you don't dare talk about that. Even looking at pictures was horrific enough. But I would say I'd extrapolate that even further to say mental health, which is still, I believe, a massive taboo in lots and lots of different communities, particularly in my household.

I said to my mother, I need to go to the spa to look after my mental health. And she goes, why did you need to do that? In my days, you just ended up just cooking a bit more for your husband. Oh, God. It's just like, well, this is why it's so different. And I think that generational thing of like, we came here as immigrants, we just got on with it. There was no such thing as spa days or manny peddies. So you just need to get on with it now.

And I think that that openness now is a real shock factor to our ancestors, but also other people in the community. Like my mother gets really horrified by a lot of things that I do but she was having a florid hot flush in front of me and I said mum you're having a hot flush and it cringes me to say this but she was like no no no white women get hot flushes

because there is this concept there are certain things that don't happen to our bodies so too taboo you don't talk about them because the words that we use and the language that we use is so derogatory so the lexicon to express yourself isn't there and then she was like stand in the 50 degree heat in Pakistan. You'll know what hot flushes. And then also, I think her

concept of what I do as a doctor. So she was like ringing me about the kids. And I didn't pick up. And later on, I was like, mom, you know, on a Thursday, I do a coil clinic. And she was just like, yeah, no, but I was trying to ring you. And I was, what were you doing? And I was like, I'm literally between the legs of about eight women. She was like, this is so disgusting. So it's okay. that I do to say to her friends, my daughter's a doctor. But the actual physical work of what we do is actually in some questions, in some books, some people would look at that and go, well, you're never at the head end of anything. You're at the tail end. You're literally at the tail end looking at three different holes. Looking at various things. I've probably put my fingers in it. I've definitely

examined it. Yeah. I've definitely smelled it. And so there's nothing that's embarrassing to me anymore because I've seen it and done it over my 19 years as a doctor. But those, that taboo bit of what you relayed to society is a massive discourse to me. It's interesting you were saying about how our priorities are just so different to our parents in so many ways because it's Maslow's hierarchy of needs, isn't it? Yes. I get the same from my mum, where my mum grew up in a farm with 12 siblings in Ireland

and had a very, very difficult childhood. And if I had a day where I struggled with my mood, my mum would say, you know, try do a day on a farm in Ireland. Exactly. But we, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, we have, you know, we've been blessed with probably more stability than they had, that that means that we aren't as focused on, our basic needs, we have that capacity to focus on higher needs, which can be difficult.

You know, it can be difficult for them to see it from our point of view and us to see it from their point of view. I definitely think it's embedded in privilege. Like if I look at my parents and how incredibly hard they worked to, you know, function, to accommodate the weather to, because my father, you know, was head hunted to work in this country. So he came. He ran a mosque from the age of 24, very young. And my mother was very young as well. And then he brought over, you know, for about five years, he would just go back because he never thought it was a secure job.

And my other siblings came along. And it was only because I was growing up and becoming quite rebellious that my uncle said to my dad, Nagat's actually really bright. And, you know, if you want your kids to have a better life and an education where they're good, you should take them to England. and actually as a family unit you should be together.

So for them to bring us over, my father never earned a lot. Like if anybody works in sort of community-based jobs, you'll know that the money isn't, you know, extortionate. But they made every penny count and they knew exactly how to give us what we wanted so that we now have the capacity to have the privilege to not have to live the, you know, day by day or paycheck by paycheck. but also the privilege of education as well, which wasn't a privilege that they had. And so for them, the simple factor of going to a spa, which we can laugh about it,

but I think that to be able to even focus on yourself and prioritise yourself does come from a level of privilege. A hundred percent. And I think it's about making sure that we use that privilege in a good way, which you absolutely have done. And I think it's really good to reflect that. So this is the issue that I have with a lot of, like, advice when people go, oh, you know, stressed, go for a run. You know, if you, or have a, do, you know, have a soak yourself in the bath, etc. Or you want some TLC, get some TLC.

There are literally people up and down, or people who listen to this podcast who just don't have that. And I suppose it comes down to, again, level of hierarchy. Where do you prioritize yourself? And we'll see it time and time again, women will constantly prioritize themselves right at the bottom. And so all we can do is just say, hang on, you're dealing with all these issues already, which are, you know, the gynecological issues, your periods on a month-to-month basis. I think there is some allowance that you can do and almost give yourself permission to change where you sit on that level of priority. But I suppose I can say that again because I have a level of privilege to say that.

When was it that you decided that you were going to follow the path of medicine? There were two reasons why I started medicine and I'm going to say, shamefully, it was never because I wanted to help people. Nice. It beats the people who say, I want to go into medicine to help. It's the people on the first day of medical school who say they want to be a pediatric oncologist. They always turn out. Because they want to save lives.

I'm so sorry. That was never the reason. But I find sometimes the people who they're all high and mighty, what are you covering up for? What guilt are you trying to make up for with this altruism? So I appreciate the honesty. I have two major reasons of going into medicine. Firstly, I think I can't think of doing anything other than medicine. I was so determined come hell or high water to become a doctor. and the only reason I wanted to become a doctor was for the title.

Nice. That's it. I wanted to become a doctor because I wasn't going to be the daughter of, the wife of. I was going to be a missus. And that from, I would say, very young age at the age of 12, I realized I need to be my own person with my own achievements and work damn hard so that I can be recognized. in my own right rather than. Because being the daughter of the Imam does come with its level of privileges. People do like are nice to you.

They'll think they're you're amazing. They'll come up to you at the mosque. They might want to kiss your hand. Which doesn't happen all the time. But it's just because your father is in a position of authority and a position of sort of great respect. But I needed to earn that. respect and so I needed to go off and do something that was for me and I'd come late to the

country so I was constantly being told oh you're not going to really achieve too much because you've come so late and so the education system there are levels of privilege in the education system that you just won't have access to you didn't go to a grammar school you failed you 11 plus which I did and I didn't really score amazingly in my GCSEs but I would still say hands down the hardest thing I've ever done from a comprehensive school was my A levels. My A levels were a hundred times harder than even my medical degree because in those two years, I was going to do everything possible to get into medical school and make sure that I got that title that I wanted. And the other reason I went into medicine was because I didn't want to get married off.

nice so my dad we had a compromise because the culture that I come from is we have arranged marriages and my husband doesn't why we're saying this now but at the time it was very much like oh you know you're coming up to 19 18 19 you've done your A levels right 20 you need to think about marriage 25 you're going to be like that's it you're an old made by 20 I mean that's it you're done by 25. If you're not married by 25 and then settle down, that's it. And I was like, that's not the life that I want. I desperately cannot imagine myself getting married in my 20. I mean, I did get married at 23, but that's not the like, I need to have something where a, I'm not the property of my husband, so I haven't taken my marital name. I'm not a missis. I'm a doctor.

I have complete financial independence. So whoever I have, I get married to, I need to know that I've got my own finances. And I think that's the other thing. We don't teach girls about money at all. And it really frustrates me that we don't. My father would always have the conversations about money and savings and monetizing what you're doing with my brothers. But that was again a conversation that I didn't ever have access or the privilege to because it was assumed that my husband would provide for me financially. And I was like, But I don't want to be controlled that way. I want to make sure that I make my own money.

And the idea was, so we had a compromise that I'll go off and do my five years in medicine or six years, get my degree, but I'll come home and then I'll look at marriage. And that warded off the fear of getting married to young. Nice. I really appreciate the honesty. So there was nothing about compassion for patients. I mean, I'm very compassionate about my patients, but those were my initial two reasons of going into medicine. Yeah, I really appreciate the honesty.

I really appreciate the honesty. I find it really interesting. You mentioned about the financial side of having that independence. I saw something recently about the pension gap. Yeah. So where women, you know, they take time off to have kids. And whilst they're doing that, their husband is paying into his pension, but he's not paying into her pension.

So then when the time comes, women have this, have a far less. Yeah. It seems so obvious, but just another way that women are just not being engaged in these conversations early enough. So we're talking about something

that both couple went into. So say this is a stable monogamous marriage where they're married and the pension pot and they want to have one children, two children, three children. So that's okay. But imagine then you're taking time off

because of your heavy menstrual periods. your endometriosis, your adenema. So this is where I find that it's so awful the way that we're off on a back foot as women just because of our biology. And that's never taken into account with our finances. And at the end, we're like, oh, women are actually not achieving or rich enough as men. Because if you look at the 1%, which are CEOs or billionaires, actually there's only one or two women, I think, globally.

That's shocking. No, yeah. But then when you look at how the cards stacked against, it makes complete sense. But even cards stacked against, I would say, you know, medical doctors within the medicine system. You know, as a female trainee, I would be off because I had a miscarriage, so I'd be off with my miscarriage. And then again, that would be like to use that time, I'd had sick leave for two days, but I needed extra because I had a miscarriage. so I needed a DNC and I had to use my annual leave God, yeah

so I couldn't even use like compassionate leave because you're only allowed a certain number of days so I had to bolt on my annual leave to recover from having a DNC Oh my gosh. Afterwards and I was thinking now I'm older and I'm thinking

in that time if a man had something removed out of him would he take his annual leave to recover from that? Isn't that horrific? Yeah. And we're doing this to our own doctors, our own individuals who then work in the system. And if they're not well and you're not looking after them, how are your patients and the system and the NHS is going to be well?

It's not. And that's my biggest, I think, I would say, frustration. And every now and then I think about it and the rage, because it's still happening. It hasn't changed. As you know already, look at the way that F1s and F2s are. treated or trainee doctors, as they say, they're not trainees, they're actual qualified doctors who are incredibly highly, highly skilled individuals who carry a massive amount of responsibility

and risk, but we're not looking after them mentally and physically. It's interesting. I've never thought of it from that perspective of being able to look after your patients or of treating doctors with compassion and how that, if we're not being compassionate to doctors, it makes it harder for them to be compassionate to patients because I don't know if you agree, but one of the most common complaints I hear from my friends, when my friends talk about doctors, I'm the only doctor in my friendship group, is that they just find a lot of doctors cruel and callous and not empathic. And I struggle sometimes to try and stand up for doctors in a lot of those conversations because I've had experiences with doctors that have been where they have not been compassionate, have not

been compassionate. But then actually, we don't get compassion in the system. We are told to get on with it. And I think that that absolutely translates to how we treat patients. There's been times where I've probably been a little bit dismissive of a patient and then walked away and gone, that you have, it is being beaten out of you, Faye. Your empathy is being drained. out of you and you need to, you need to recognise that before you do become someone who is, has lost their empathy. I still say the, the training system in the NHS, which you've gone through, I've gone through, I've gone through probably a decade before you do, is the most toxic. I look back and I'm just like, my first experience of actual racism towards me was from a

consultant on a training job. She looked at me. She's white Caucasian lady, looked at me right in the eye and just looked at my name badge and when your name badge is too complicated, I can't pronounce that. What's your name? And I went, it's nigat, but in Urdu, Punjabi is pronounced nighat. And she just went, oh, it's too long. It's too long. Can I just call you Nikki while you're here on this rotation for four months? And I look around, all the other students that are just too embarrassed to say anything. I must have been a fourth year medical student at the time on a rotation. And I, some somehow inside me felt so humiliated and I just said to her, my name is negat. You will learn to say my name.

And honestly, she marked me down massively. Because that's the slap in the face, right? Her authority is, is that she'll say that I'm not a good student. I'm not clever enough. I won't learn. So I actually didn't score very well on that rotation. But I can't cry racism to anybody at that time. But that's what it was. She just, that it was her internal bias straight away to look at an ethnically sounding name and just go switched off and go, I just don't have the time or the capacity to do this and use her white privilege then to mark me down. So then you go to another rotation, hoping that you have a very understanding consultant

who's able to then mark you up so you can go through your rotations. And it's this game that you play constantly going that actually my white colleague, his name David is not going to have that same level of mental load to worry about. That was number one. Number two, having a miscarriage using annual leave. And then standing in theatres after coming back and asking why did I take leave? And I wasn't able to do the nights in front of, with a male consultant and all the other colleagues around me, not even given the privacy to.

And again, I just was very blunt. I said, I've had a miscarriage, thank you. Good for you. Good for you. I think because I, at that point, wasn't, I don't know where I've had this resilience, but also this thing to go, I will not perpetuate that taboo and shame. Like, you will not shame me for taking leave because I've had a miscarriage. I will not shy away from that because this is something that's biologically happened to me.

It was a mismast carriage. much wanted pregnancy. It was our first. And I will refuse to allow a fellow colleague to do that. But for others, I think if I wasn't so resilient and so balshy, I think it might have actually broken my spirit a little bit. So I can understand that. And then the next thing is, is that, you know,

I had a patient who spoke Punjabi, who was severely suffering from his alcoholism Sikh. His wife only spoke Punjabi. So he only spoke Punjabi with me. And so you become the translator on the ward And I was an F2 at the time in Slough He shouldn't have been discharged They needed a bed

They discharged him He went home, went on an absolute bender with his alcohol Because he's an alcoholic, bless him And got into a huge argument with his family Doused himself in petrol And burnt himself alive in front of his kids And I had moved on on the rotation by then I was in a GP practice

the police turned up at my surgery, wanting to take a statement from me because the family of press charges, but named me specifically because I was a doctor that could communicate with them to explain the situation because none of the English-speaking doctor spoke to them. So they were like, Dr. Nagat discharged our husband when it shouldn't have been. It was an inappropriate discharge. I was an F2. So going to a coroner's hearing, and that's when you realize that actually the hospital is only looking after themselves. They were just. just so desperate to not. And so for the first time in my life, I am calling MDU and getting, so I think all of these sort of experiences shame you because it's so shameful to talk about

your mistakes. And we still haven't stopped giving shame oxygen in medicine. We keep providing it oxygen. So as doctors, we keep getting burnt out. We keep hiding our mistakes. We don't ever bring them out into the open. Stop giving it oxygen. once it's out in the open and then you go right but how can I learn and rectify it um and so I'm constantly I'm humble enough to know I don't know everything I'm humble enough to say I messed up I bulls up I completely I dropped the ball on a patient um I'm humble enough to talk about it today look I made these mistakes along the way um and I learned from them and I and I needed to to change that It's really interesting that you brought up that the first time you really experienced racism was in a medical situation because I came similar-ish state school in North Wales where I thought that medicine was this utopia where everyone was going to be so intelligent and non-prejudiced and it was maybe taking a step away from this small-mindedness that I thought that.

was in North Wales. And then when you're confronted with all these systemic issues in medicine, it wasn't this dream that I thought it was. But you're completely right. The best doctors I have worked with have been the people who will always ask for help and they will always, they don't have an ego. They will always admit when they don't know something and hold their hands up when they do something wrong.

And yeah, it's, it is very tricky being a doctor in the, in the NHS at the moment and I'm, God, I'm so sorry, those are awful experiences. No, but I think we need to, I'm not embarrassed by them and I'm, and I don't feel sad about them in a weird way. They, they happened and they are continuing to happen, you know, and they continue to happen all over. I think that the one thing is, is I just think that we need to be really honest and frank and have these conversations, which are happening. I've got colleagues who are talking about, you know, sexual abuse that they're experiencing within the NHS. I never experienced that. I definitely had a consultant who was fascinated what I would look like without my hijab on.

So it was always something, and I think that's why I never did theatres like surgery. I never went into the surgical field because there was no such thing as to have an appropriate hijab or head covering for theatres apart from the caps. And the caps never really sort of suited me well because at the time I had like different hairstyle and stuff. And so I would often, and the caps were always kept, as you know, else in theatres. So you have to come out without your head covered. In theatres, find your cap, then cover your hair. Do you remember? Yeah. Because then you'd wash up and then get your scrubs on. And he'd always stand there just to see what I look like without my hair. And that, and I'm laughing now because I'm just thinking, firstly, how childish.

But also how inappropriate. But he probably, he probably. didn't even know that that was quite inappropriate and letchers or probably did know but that didn't stop him didn't stop him yeah and so now when I hear colleagues saying to me you know I was groped in theatres or you know and I get on the other side I get surgeons who come and see me female surgeons who are like I'm constantly in battle because my PPE that I'm wearing in theatres is I'm sweating away because I'm menopausal I've got hot flushes and I want to turn the aircon on and the male surgeon comes in and turns it down. Well, the registrar comes in and turns it down because it's,

and I want the aircon on, but I need to do that for my theatres. I had a neurosurgeon who came to see me. And she was just like, I'm leaving my profession. I'm leaving my profession. And I was like, it fucking works shit hard to become a neurosurgeon. And she was like, but I can't deal with these hot flashes. And I was like, yeah, because you're menopausal. We will deal with this.

But you leaving the profession. And this is what happens. because she's like, I just cannot deal with the up down, up down of the aircon anymore. And it's these little, you know, it's not like a massive thing that makes you leave or get frustrated with a profession. It's these tiny little micro paper cuts, I would say. And I've had those. So over the years, I've just realized what I'd want to do and what career path I'd want to go into. And then therefore that shapes how much resilience you have.

And so for me, I knew that theatres wasn't. good place for me to be and I needed to get out and just do something else because I just that was a bad experience and I so what you do is you extract yourself yeah because that's a level of privilege that you just don't have as a Muslim woman who needs to cover her hair God isn't that crazy it is crazy because like how many people because again that's another mental load that you carry which like you would probably not even even think about yeah or even think about okay now I need to make sure that my name is pronounceable And you're like, the world learned the name Kardashian.

They can learn Nagat. I'm sorry. This is a woman who has a whole entire medical degree is a consultant. What do you mean you can't pronounce? That's just ridiculous. That's pure, pure laziness. That's pure laziness, but that's just institutionalized racism because she's managed to get. And at some point, she's managed to get away with it.

That's why. So it's emboldened her to continue doing it because she's got away with it because she's got away with it because she is at a level of hierarchy and power. Yeah. I don't know if you agree with me on this one, but something I've thought for a long time when I hear some, or when I see the negative press, there's a lot of negative press around doctors at the moment, and I hear it from a lot of my friends as well. And something I've thought for a long time is that it does a lot of damage when doctors are lump together as one homogenous lump. I have worked with incredible doctors who care for the patients who are so knowledgeable. But we have had bad experiences with

doctors. When my friends come to me and say a bad experience that they've had, I will go, I completely agree with you. Do not lump me in with them. I think people assume that doctors are really cliquy. And this is the bit that I get because I call out a lot of bad practices. Oh, not bad practices, but I'm constantly saying on my social media, this is what you're entitled to. So pain relief for gynecological procedures is one of my. big issues that I have and I constantly post about that and I say, look, because I do a coil clinic, I've done it for 12, 15 years. So I know good practices, bad practices because I was taught bad practices and then I learnt from my patients telling me actually that's not good. So I learned

a smaller speculum is better or a longer speculum is better or actually to take into account this woman might have adenomyosis and endometriosis. When if you've got adenomyalis, Myosis makes the womb slightly stiffer. And so, yeah, you're not going to be able to provide a good amount of pain relief just by getting them to take some paracetamol and do a few breathing exercises. It all comes down to time and cost always constantly. And so I think that whenever I do that, I get a bunch of doctors or individuals who do those procedures who feel it's a personal affront to them.

They're like, but I do this in my clinical. the time. I'm like, mate, I'm not talking to you then. Like, calm down. Yeah. Or it'll be like, but I've always used one particular spectrum. I've never had a woman complain. I'm like, okay, but are you asking them in the consultation for feedback? I bet you're not. And so when I do this, I think it's always because we're all on the same side. Yeah. You're on the same side as the patient. I'm on the same side as the patient as well. And it's essentially the sort of different barriers and silos of the way that the system is set up. And also, if you're taught bad practice, you will carry on doing that. And for women, they wait so long to get that appointment,

to get to see that gynecologist for a hystroscope, to get to see that endometriosis specialist, that they'll then grin and bear it because they're like, I've just got to grin and bear this for, you know, five minutes or four minutes or ten minutes to get this investigation done. And so the same cycle. So that bad practice of using the wrong size speculum, that bad practice are not offering local anaesthetic, that bad practice of not having enternox because it's too expensive to have in your setting, means that it continues and it continues and continues and we are where we are. I think a bad clinician fundamentally is somebody who goes, but we've always done it this way. Yeah. Like, no, mate. And also let's that ego get in the way and not recognize. Maybe there is a way

Again, yeah, because we have such shame in the medical profession to own up to the fact that we don't know anything. You probably can think of multiple healthcare professionals or consultants who will bullshit their way out or something when you clearly know that they don't know what they're talking about. I've definitely sat. They will cite some odd banal paper because you can cherry pick any paper. I can see your face before. Yes, I've sat with that individual in multiple meetings because I've had that. I've had, I sat in a prescribing meeting about testosterone years ago for female testosterone for surgical menopause patient and primary ovarian insufficiency patients.

Because when they have surgical menopause, you take out the ovaries. 50% of their testosterone goes down. And I sat in prescribing meetings at CCB boards. And male and female, like doctors or gynecologist or GP sitting around the table, would look at me and go, yeah, but women don't really need testosterone. It's a male hormone. And you're looking at them. I know.

And you're looking at them going, okay, you know that's not true. And it's just like, but we've only, the data from such and such article shows that it has a placebo effect. And you're like, yeah, but you know that wasn't a randomized controlled study and that. So you can find studies. You can find study. To say anything. Yeah.

Exactly. But anything to downplay what you're trying to advocate for is something I think that we're so good at in medicine and I find that particularly irksome because it happens in women's health the most I feel. Yeah. Do you remember the first time you decided to pick up your phone and film a video and put it on the internet? Oh yeah. It was a, it's a really funny story because in the fact that it was a dare by my sister. We were in lockdown. Yeah. People were being furloughed. Nobody knew what furlough men at that time. Now everybody bloody knows what furlough means. And we were shielding. My middle son has had a liver transplant. So he needed to be shielded and I started

shielding with him. General practice changed overnight. Everything was online and I was having the same conversation with my patients online doing telephone and teams or Zoom calls at the time with my patients who were booking into my clinic. So I set up a space in my house. Every patient would probably start off their conversation to me by going, I know you've got really serious patients to look after, but, and it would always be my female patients. And I'd be like, no, I know we've got COVID

and we're in the middle of a pandemic, but your, you know, hot flushes, your vagina, your painful sex is just as important. And my sister goes to me, well, why don't you, you know, instead of doing a TikTok dance, do a video about vagina dryness and do it in Punjabi.

Because we have no words for it. Nice. And that was literally her challenge to me. And I was like, right, you're on. And so I started doing videos from home like everybody did at that time in 2020 in the height of lockdown. And they just went bananas. Like it just went bananas. And after lockdown, I was in Sainsbury's toddling along with my trolley.

And this Pakistani woman followed me down the aisle. and I was just like, oh God, I don't know who this lovely lady is. And she just went, are you, Dr. Nagat? And I went, yes. And she just went, I just want to tell you, thank you so much. I've got some vaginal estrogen. And you've changed my life, but you've changed my mom's life as well. And that was the first real sort of, oh, gosh, this is actually making a difference.

And what was happening was that because of my videos, I always try and keep them below two minutes 20. I can't talk very long and I edit all my own content as well and I can't bear my face and my voice and so what they were doing was downloading that and putting it into the family WhatsApp group because a lot of the matriarchs or the family are the older women in the I say older women

but their grandmas or their aunts probably weren't on TikTok but they were you know the Gen Zs and the Gen Alphas were and the millennials and what they were doing was they were downloading it and then popping it And if it was in the family WhatsApp group, you were like, oh, I better watch this because my lovely daughters sent it to me.

So you watch it and you pay attention to it. And that's how like my social media just organically built up. The first time that I came across you was you were talking at, it was the YouTube health one, a YouTube health event. Oh, right. And you did a talk. What I really loved about what you were talking about was that it was a woman who at a time when Islamophobia is very, very high. And there's these stereotypes around Muslim women, especially as being suppressed, depressed, repressed. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And just speaking, without even flinching,

without even a little bit of colour to your cheeks, vaginas, sex. Just every... Yeah, orgasms. Yeah, literally. And I... Vibrators are important. Speaking on this morning about vibrances and sleep, just smashing through the stereotypes and I think being able to reach groups of people that others aren't able to get through to is so, so, so needed. But I can imagine that duality comes with its own criticism.

Oh, I'm heavily trolled. My content gets taken down consistently. I lumped them into three groups, actually. Okay. Over the years, I say over the years, I think it'll be five years in October that I've been doing, sort of working with, you know, mainstream TV, BBC and ITV. And I have my own podcast as well, call that time of the month, which I just absolutely love. It's our little corner of the world where we talk about everything that's taboo with myself,

Dr. Christina Ketchi and Nagabanchetti. And it's on BBC Sounds Up. And the feedback that we get from there is sometimes hilarious, very sad. But I think that because I'm on mainstream TV, radio and obviously my own social media, and I contribute to quite a few magazines, to me, I'm talking about my bread and butter. So I do talk about vibrators in my consultations. I do talk about sexual health. Really important. Sex is life. Literally. Literally. Literally. We never would be here without it. Exactly. Unless we're IVF. Exactly. But also, even then. And then also, I think that, um,

The concept of female pleasure seems to be so taboo and entrenched in so much misogyny and patriarchy that I think that I need to turn that on my head. And it's got nothing to do with my faith or my ethnicity, but just as a biological woman, I need to be able to have the fact that we need to talk about female pleasure because it's not taboo, but it's so important. What fascinates me is people's reaction. and that I think is just hilarious in a way where now I sort of laugh

but also sometimes I think okay we've got a long way to go still I think we're getting there we still got a long way to go because people's assumption of when they look at me that duality that you talked about is so the group one is

usually people who are just like flabbergasted so it's a mixture in middle England regardless of their racist ethnicity or background they just like oh my god there's a woman with a hijab talking about vaginal dryness. And she's not embarrassed and she's talking about it factually. And these women exist.

Like this person exists. So that's the first group and they're great. And then the second group is like, oh, I'm interested with you. You talk without an accent. And also you're a woman and you cover your hair. And so you must be Muslim. But also, you know, why aren't you baking me a cake? and doing the domestic stuff that I'd like their concept of is very linear and the monolith is

is that I expect you just to have this my expectation of this role for you. And like I said, you know, that's suppressed, that you don't fit there. Why aren't you talking about terrorism? Why aren't you talking about being on the benefits or why aren't you talking about, you know, this impression that we have of immigrants because I'm very proud. I say, look, I'm an immigrant in this country and I am not ashamed by it. And then I get the third group, which is sort of my own community. And I'll often get them going, oh, where's your husband?

Does your husband know you're doing this? Does your father know you're doing it? I'm like, I'm a 41-year-old woman with three kids. Yes, my father knows I'm on telly. And then one particular one was when I talked about orgasms after having sex. That got taken down for breaking community guidelines. Essentially, it's still something that upsets a lot of. community. I mean, I wasn't breaking community guidelines. It was all based in fact and science.

But I would get like Muslim sisters. Sometimes I turn them as the haram police, which is like, Haram is sinful in our language. So they're going, sister, my husband came across your video talking about female orgasms. I hope you know that this is deeply Haram, sinful. You will not get into the gates of Jannah, which is heaven. And I'm very, very upset that you're putting this out there. I've seen some of your content and this should all be behind closed doors not on a social media platform where men can pry on you

which again is haram and I would be like when I first got these I was just like really like taken aback and a bit sort of like because it upsets you because they're talking in a language to shame me by using my faith

and nothing quietens you quick enough than using your faith I'm grown up with it so now I've got to to the point where I love playing games. So I'm like, sister, thank you so much for watching my video and getting your husband to watch my video about orgasms. I'm so pleased that hopefully now he's learned something and is giving you orgasms.

And may you both go into the gates of heaven when you pass away because you're having amazing orgasms. And he's doing his job for me. You're doing it. You're getting the actual sexious. And I think that's hilarious because I've realized over time that. But people who are not going to follow you or not be your, are not part of your tribe, and don't like your ethnicity or not ethnicity, sorry, let me just say,

and don't like your authenticity. They're just not, you can't. So I've given, I'm very liberal with the block button. And I, the way I sound, the way I talk, the way I look, none of it's going to change. This is how I am with my patience and my practice. And I think that I refuse to apologize for being my authentic self and bringing my whole self. I've refused to shy away from talking about my childhood or, you know, the experiences that I've had, or the fact that, you know, I'm Pakistani, or the fact that I'm brown.

You can see I'm brown. Or the fact that I'm Muslim and hide, oh yeah, hide any bit of me. I'm very, very comfortable in my skin. But do you know what? That's weird because what I've really really. is still a woman that is comfortable with herself, her body, her authenticity, creeps the hell out of people. It scares them shitless. Because they can't use anything then to scare you. And that, I think, is the only skill I ever want to teach my kids and my boys

and my nieces is absolutely become comfortable with your whole. self, bring your whole self, don't shy from anything and never, because then there's no power then over you. I would love to know where that has come from if you, if you know where that's come from because even for you as a fourth year medical student to say it's negat, you're not going to call me Nikki and to have that strong sense of self that you, you don't, you don't water yourself down for anyone. And that is, that is something. I think we can all learn from. I think from me, if I think about it, fundamentally it comes from my faith.

I'm very grounded in my faith. And I'm not saying that I bring that out to people and go, you need to learn about my faith. I mean, like, look, I love Love Island just as an ex-girl. I want to see women walking around in bikinis because they're hot. But, no, but I'm joking aside, I think that the moral compass, bedded in me by my parents is quite profound. So I do talk about difficult concepts. So I do talk about, you know, patriarchy, misogyny, Islamophobia.

Human rights, I openly talk a lot about humanity. And there's a lot of wars going on at the moment to be absolutely devastated by the fact that what we are doing to the future of children and women is devastatingly sad. but also I think that I come down to the fact that at the end of the day when I have my last breath it won't be because I wore a hijab. It won't be because my body, the carcass that I'm going to go away with had breasts or a vulva or anything. It was it would be how did I make people feel along the way and how did I try my best to do good and be good? I mean by the way I'm not saying that I'm a good person. I think that is a really a horrible thing, actually.

I never want to do. But did I just try to do that? Because when I meet my maker, would I be able to say I did what I could? And that's all I need. I don't need to even change anything. I don't need to move the dial. And so for me, I think that that level of sort of comfort comes from the fact that, yeah, I'm going to be authentic because you can't scare me. You can't scare me by the fact that I wear a hijab.

You can't scare me that my nose isn't the European nose. You can't scare me that my lips are slightly big or that I have really high cheekbones or because that I used to hate when I was younger. I used to hate my nose or, you know, I'm not a size zero. You know, for some people I'm too fat. For some people I'm too skinny. You can't, you know, you can't even upset me about my melanin anymore because at the end of the day, if I just have my last breath, I look at my maker and I said,

I tried to do good. That's it. I'm happy. That's just giving me goosebumps. That was absolutely beautiful. And also not that it matters, but your cheekbones are absolutely phenomenal. Do you know what?

It's so funny. I'll tell you a really quick story because when I got into the makeup chair, so how I got into telly is fucking hilarious. Talking about religion. Yeah. So this lovely lady called Kelly Needham, who is like my ultimate woman.

So along the way I have to say I've always been given a hand up by women. I, you know, I adore women. I just genuinely cut me open and I love women. Not in a sexual sense. But I just love the essence of women. I mean, I love men as well because I'm a mother to three boys and they, you know, they're my heart and my world and my soul. And my husband is just the most incredible man and I adore him to pieces.

But yeah, cut me open. women just run through me because they are the ones that got me up and everywhere. Like even this, I feel I adore you because this, whatever it comes of it, but you pulled out a chair for me to give me a platform. Bagged. Begged. Begged you again. Flirted, hello. But no, no, genuinely, you pulled out a chair and I cannot ever criticise anyone who pulls out a chair for someone ever. So for me, like, you're my woman. And Kelly Needham did that for me. And she was at BBC

Breakfast. She was like, I've seen your tweets about back when it was Med Twitter about, you know, South Asian women and menopause. We're going to do something called wake up to the menopause. So I never wanted to go in telly because I'd always grown up with the fact that I just don't have a face for telly, honestly. So I've grown up with lots of different things over the years. And that's the other thing. I think it's just like come to a point where I don't give a shit. And I was like, oh God, I'm on maternity leave. You know, I look a mess. I'm not really a telly face. I'm not going to come on TV. And she went, we'll do your hair and makeup. And I was like, I'll be there tomorrow. Thank you very much. Like, I know, I know. Like, I'm never going to get that for free.

Like, anywhere else. Exactly. The BBC is going to give me a pamper and a makeover for free. The dream. And that genuinely was the pull to go on telly. Oh my gosh. And that's it. And then when I got into the makeup chair, apart from my wedding day, which was like, you know,

16, 17 years before, I'd never really had my makeup done after that. And so, Grania, who's the makeup lady there, she's still there. She's just absolutely adorable. She goes,

so what are we doing with your face? She's like this really northern woman. And I was like, contour the shit out of this. It made me look like Kim Kardashian. with her high cheekbones. Oh, and you have the most gorgeous. You've got cheekbones that Kim Kardashian would end.

Literally, that was it. Because it was like, thank God for the Kardashians, because big lips came in. And high cheekbones came in. And like thick eyebrows came back in. So I have a lot to thank for fashion changing. When I was a teenager, no, it was an ugly duckling situation. Yeah, you can criticize. Yeah, you can criticize the Kardashians for a lot.

Yeah. thank God that they might like eyebrows, thick eyebrows. And Clara Dallavine, like, I'm like, if I ever meet the woman, I'll be like, thank God for you. You made my big, thick caterpillar eyebrows fashionable. I would love to now talk a little bit about your books, plural. Yes. You, I think before we started recording or maybe just as soon as we started recording, you mentioned a really quite sad achievement actually for this book. If you're listening on the table, it's the knowledge. Extremely big achievement for you, but it's sad it's never happened before.

I was on, you know, I do lots of TV and things and this lovely publisher, Octopus, reached out to me. And Stephanie, who's not there, she's moved on to bigger and better things. And she goes, would you be willing to write a book? And I said, yes. And I'm dyslexic, so I'm not good at writing. So I said, I can't do a book proposal for you, but can I make a video because this is what I want?

And she went, yeah, and I went, I want a book. with black vulva's in it. That was like literally my pitch. But opening nine or my hook was I want a book with black vulva's in it. And I want women with hijabs in it who are breaking their fast and talking about menstrual and period health and pregnancy. And so it's the, it's the first book that's got what vulval lichen sclerosis looks like on black and brown skin. And they were like, oh, would we ever just do line drawings? Can we just do line drawings? We're happy to put a vulva in. but we'll do a line drawing of it. And I went, no, but I need the pigmentation, and I need it in all different colors.

I need dark all the way down to sort of pale white, because otherwise we have a lot of issues with colourism. And I need women to see themselves in my body, and I need different shaped bodies. It's literally the biological journey from periods to the fertility years with trans health in there, because I do trans health in there in my clinics and then menopause and beyond. and it's like it's a recipe book for your body and it's like real practical things it's like okay there are a pad with wings

and there's like you know moon cups what contraceptions are all the side effects actually if you've got elostanos how does that affect you in regards to the contraceptive choices you have because again that's a condition that doesn't fall into anything and then what are the names of the HRTs so it's literally a medical book that anyone can pick up

so my book in my house and remember we're very much a Muslim house and I've got three boys. It's just on the table because I want my boys to know this because any woman, like my husband to know about it, any woman that comes into their life or, you know, when they have daughters, if they ever choose to have children in the future,

I want them to know what they're going through because I fundamentally believe that if the woman is well, then the household is well. And if everybody in the household knows about what's happening with that. And you're having that multi-generational conversation, which I didn't have the privilege to do, with my mother because we just was so, she was so ashamed. I want to make sure that that doesn't perpetuate and keep going and happening further. So it's something that like I say, I'm really proud

of. I'm really proud of. I think it makes an incredible coffee shop at coffee table book. It is just so beautiful to flick through as well and look through the pictures, see what you land on, pick out a little bit of a little nugget of information. It's absolutely beautiful. And it's really interesting. You say that something that you're really passionate about is making sure that boys understand the female body as well. Because I think that was my introduction to women's health was, or my introduction to, yeah,

my introduction to being passionate about women's health was my mom was the school nurse for all the local schools. And she was the only school nurse who wouldn't split up the boys and the girls. she made sure the boys and the girls sat together they learned about the boys learned about periods the girls learns about the um what they're wet dreams and all that fun stuff because she she wanted to remove the shame and I think that having this is a staple in people's household is a wonderful way to do that it's and in fact everybody asks me or did you write this for women because that's usually when I was on a press tour for it and um plugging the book I was like no I wrote it for

my boys. Like, it's as selfish as that, but I did. I needed them to know that mum's vaginal estrogen goes with her to the home. You have to prize it out of my dead cold hands. Because ultimately, they will be with me towards like the last breath that I take. And I need them to know that this is what's happening to them, to like the woman in my life. But I also think that again, it means that if it doesn't become a woman's issue, I totally believe that women's health is not a woman issue. It's a societal, but it's both genders, both of them. They both need to look after it because we literally come from a woman. Our uterus builds a human, which blows my mind that we do that. And then all the other consequences that come from it. And the

fact that, you know, we start our periods now at the age of 11 and on a monthly basis, nothing happens more frequently than 12 periods a year. So we bleed if we do, are lucky enough to bleed. It's women bleed more than that. And we do that from the age of about 11 to about 52. It's the most frequent event that happens to us as women and girls. And yet there's so much shame. If a man bled out of his penis every four weeks, can you imagine? You know, I'm dying. Yeah, the world would stop. It would stop. But if it like, everybody was like, yeah, but that's normal. It's just it's, you're just bleeding out your penis, mate. Calm down. You know, don't worry. You know, here's some like ads which have no wings.

Yeah. And you rattle when you walk. Yeah. And you rattle, yeah, because you can hear them. And you can't sit comfortably. And oh yeah, by the way, just before you start your bleed, you might end up getting that endometriosis and that spreads or adenomyces. And you can't have sex because that's painful because you're bleeding as well.

But if that happened, that frequently to any other gender, well, men, I think that there would be massive overhaul of where we are with healthcare system. And only 1% of the global GDP is put on women's healthcare. God. Apart from oncology. And oncology, rightly so, cancer should have more money invested into it. But that's shocking. That's shocking when you think about adomyosis, endometriosis, PCOS, PMDD,

other causes that can cause heavy periods like thyroid conditions as well. Iron deficiency anemia, which women are more affected than any, you know, than men as well. And then if you think about then, menopause, which 51% of the population go through, pregnancy, miscarriage, that happens to the female body. And I know that when men, I mean, if I think about my poor husband, he suffered just as badly. But miscarriage does happen physically to our body as well. Postpartum complications, breastfeeding. And then on top of that, we're trying to deal with neurodiversity. So I'm dyslexic.

ADHD, autism. On top of that, we're trying to deal with like other chronic. diseases, like weight fluctuations or obesity, cardiovascular diseases. I mean, the list is endless when you start thinking about it. And how actually women are not just little men, you know, how ADHD in women is completely different to how it presents in men. And that's why so many women go undiagnosed, you know, for so long. There's a lot of new and exciting things happening in women's health. I think people are finally starting to wake up and have these much needed conversations. But something I find an issue with is we're having these. We're having

conversations but the research isn't there for, you know, the endometriosis, the best we have is you know, laparoscopic surgery. We don't really have much, you know, the gynecology waiting lists being hundreds of thousands of people in this country, but when they actually see the doctor, do we have real solutions to offer these patients? And actually it is, it is quite limited. So of all the top conditions, their whole body, so I don't, Anomyosis, endometriosis, PCOS, fibroids, PMDD. If I think of those as the top five, I know there's lots of others, but they are whole body, lifelong, chronic conditions with no cures.

I know they say adenomy as a cure. I don't believe it does. The cure is take out the womb, hysterectomy. But there's nothing else for it. And we've been lying to women and saying to them, oh yeah, but do you know what, have a baby, your endometriosis get back, the biggest lie ever. And it infills me with rage.

Or the other really big lie is that it all goes away at menopause. Menopause doesn't cure any of those conditions, nor even PMDD. It doesn't cure it. So again, those are huge, massive lies that we keep telling. And the research isn't there at all. And I have some chink of hope. For the first time, like a couple of,

weeks ago, I sort of discussed it. 2.5 billion is being invested by the Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation into women's health over the next five years looking at the whole of women's health, so menstrual health, pregnancy, maternal health, and getting looked at better outcomes. And I think it does need like 2.5 billion is a lot of money. However, the gates are very controversial. They are known to do very unethical practices in Africa. So I think that it's trying to make sure that the ethics of female research is the paramount across the board for different ethnicities. But it does need that at a time when the Trump administration is actively defunding so much,

trans health is defunded. Roe versus Wade fills me with horror. And I think we're not too far behind that. tariffs are coming in. They have come in. I mean, only today I've got a message from a colleague of mine going, you know, GLP-1s are going to be 300% increase in cost. And that is true. It's ridiculous. And yeah, of course, why would Eli Lilly, you know, Eli Lilly is a European company. It's got a patent on GLP1s. They've hit the jackpot. If you're listening and you don't know what GLP1 is, Zempik, Wagovi. Yeah. Yeah. So their weight loss, obesity.

anti-abesity agents. And of course, you know, the pharmaceutical companies which are European-based, their tariffs have gone up massively because Trump has put European tariffs that are different to the UK tariff. And that fundamental cost is going to impact who? Women. Because the biggest consumers of anti-abicity agents are women. Because women have lots of health conditions, which mean that their hormone and

metabolic balance is so out of kilter that they're more likely to put on weight, which is harder to reduce. And if you look at it by design in the trials, they had no women that were pregnant because they couldn't. And actually on the ratio for female to male, women were fewer in the trials as well. And it's done by design. So that level of medical misogyny is still rife. But also I think that at a time when there's so much issues that are happening globally, and I come back to the Trump administration, which is shockingly, awful. I do worry. And so if the Gates Foundation are happy to plug in $2.5 billion for the future women's health over five years, so by 2040, and what they've done, which I think is fascinating for

the first time ever, is that they've not said, oh, it's a good thing to do. Because normally, I think whenever they talk about women's health, it's always seen as a moralistic, you know, morally it's good. And of course morally it's good. It's your daughter, it's your wife, it's your mother, it's your aunt, it's your grandmother, you know, the women that built you in their uterus. it's morally good to look after them, but they've built it as an investment opportunity. Because if you know that women are well, then the global economy goes up.

And it's something crazy, like $14 trillion or something. And so if it takes a financial argument and an investment argument to make people take notice, I mean, I'm here for it. Yeah. And do you know what? It's ridiculous that it hasn't happened already because, you know, you'll see women every single day who are begging for a solution,

who would pay a lot of money for a solution if there was a solution available, which... But there isn't. Yeah. So I think that that's a step in the right direction. I would just be very, very... I'm going to keep an eye on the gates. Not that they know me. But from this podcast, they might get to know me.

That has been, honestly, just such a phenomenal conversation and absolutely everything that I wanted from you coming on the podcast as definitely a dream guest. Oh, that's so kind. It's been absolutely brilliant. We've been asking all our guests a question. Dr. Nagat, what do you wish every woman knew by the time she was 25? Firstly, what is a normal period? Because like I said, nothing happens more frequently to you than starting your periods

or maybe not starting your periods or having infrequent periods. So for every woman before the age of she's 25, I want her to track, please, if you do anything, track your periods, know your cycle history, understand the psychological symptoms of your cycle history as well, which are totally overloads. It's so much more than just a bleed a month or every three weeks. It's fascinatingly so much more. So understand the mental health implications of what's happening with your cycles and get to know everything about. your cycle. So understand the follicular phase, the Latil phase, which everybody looks at me going, what does that mean? And it's not a hindrance to you going through those cycles, because as women, we're cyclical and cyclical. Men are really not. They're just steady beings. And understanding your cyclical and cycle, cyclical and cyclical, I think you could really harness

the power of your whole self and really become empowered by your body and not be scared of your body because you then understand, okay, this is what my biological body does. This is when I need to rest. This is when I need to eat better. This is when I need to hydrate better. I mean, I'm saying this from a level of privilege now that I'm 40. But if there's one thing, it would just be, please just get to know what your normal period is. I love that. Thank you so, so, so much. Thank you so much for having me. It's a real honour.