Eve McDavid is a successful executive who faced a health crisis of unthinkable proportions: cervical cancer. Surviving required Eve to disclose her diagnosis to her colleagues at Google and communicate her needs to Human Resources emphasizing the importance of empathy, support, and flexibility in the workplace. Now recognized as an expert in survivorship and innovation by the World Health Organization, Eve is on a mission to revolutionize cervical cancer care through the power of modern technology.
Eve's experience fueled her passion to drive change. In this episode, we discuss:
Show Guest
Eve McDavid, a former long-time Google executive, is now the CEO and Co-Founder of Mission-Driven Tech™, a new women's health company dedicated to transforming cervical cancer care with modern technology.
Eve advocates for women's healthcare access, literacy, and equity and has been named an expert in survivorship and innovation by the World Health Organization. Her story has been featured in The Washington Post, Insider, Thrive Global, and ABC-7. For more information, please visit EveMcDavid.com.
Mission-Driven Tech™ is a new women’s health company collaborating with Weill Cornell Medicine, transforming gynecologic cancer care with modern technology. Co-Founders Eve McDavid, a former Google executive, and Dr. Onyinye Balogun, a WCM radiation oncologist, are developing a modern internal radiation medical device and video curriculum for cervical and uterine cancer treatment.
Jill Griffin is committed to making workplaces more successful for everyone through leadership training and development, team dynamics workshops, and employee well-being programs. Her executive coaching, workshop facilitation, and innovative thinking have driven multi-million-dollar revenues for top agencies, startups, and renowned brands. Collaborating with individuals, teams, and organizations, Jill fosters high-performance and inclusive cultures while facilitating organizational growth.
Visit JillGriffinCoaching.com for more details on:
Follow @JillGriffinOffical on Instagram for daily inspiration
Connect with and follow Jill on LinkedIn
Eve McDavid is a successful executive who faced a health crisis of unthinkable proportions: cervical cancer. Surviving required Eve to disclose her diagnosis to her colleagues at Google and communicate her needs to Human Resources emphasizing the importance of empathy, support, and flexibility in the workplace. Now recognized as an expert in survivorship and innovation by the World Health Organization, Eve is on a mission to revolutionize cervical cancer care through the power of modern technology.
Eve's experience fueled her passion to drive change. In this episode, we discuss:
Show Guest
Eve McDavid, a former long-time Google executive, is now the CEO and Co-Founder of Mission-Driven Tech™, a new women's health company dedicated to transforming cervical cancer care with modern technology.
Eve advocates for women's healthcare access, literacy, and equity and has been named an expert in survivorship and innovation by the World Health Organization. Her story has been featured in The Washington Post, Insider, Thrive Global, and ABC-7. For more information, please visit EveMcDavid.com.
Mission-Driven Tech™ is a new women’s health company collaborating with Weill Cornell Medicine, transforming gynecologic cancer care with modern technology. Co-Founders Eve McDavid, a former Google executive, and Dr. Onyinye Balogun, a WCM radiation oncologist, are developing a modern internal radiation medical device and video curriculum for cervical and uterine cancer treatment.
Jill Griffin is committed to making workplaces more successful for everyone through leadership training and development, team dynamics workshops, and employee well-being programs. Her executive coaching, workshop facilitation, and innovative thinking have driven multi-million-dollar revenues for top agencies, startups, and renowned brands. Collaborating with individuals, teams, and organizations, Jill fosters high-performance and inclusive cultures while facilitating organizational growth.
Visit JillGriffinCoaching.com for more details on:
Follow @JillGriffinOffical on Instagram for daily inspiration
Connect with and follow Jill on LinkedIn
Hey friends, this is the Career Refresh and I am your host, Jill Griffin. Today I'm introducing you to my friend, eve McDavid, and she is a phenomenal story. She's a successful executive with a very impressive career and as she was on her career trajectory, she was diagnosed with stage 2b cervical cancer. Faced with a health crisis of unthinkable proportions, eve had to disclose her diagnosis with her former colleagues at Google and also communicate her needs to human resources during a very challenging time. The outcome was an emphasis on the importance of empathy, support and flexibility in the workplace. Surviving a life-altering diagnosis demands determination and perseverance, and as Eve navigated her journey back to work, she overcame physical and emotional hurdles along the way. This experience fueled Eve's passion to drive change. A CEO and co-founder of Mission Driven Tech, she's leveraging her expertise to transform cervical cancer care through innovative technologies, advocating for equitable health care access and supporting initiatives prioritizing women's health and well-being. Eve is on a mission to revolutionize cervical cancer care through the power of modern technology, and get this in just 18 months. Mission Driven Tech, the company she co-founded in collaboration with Dr O'Yenye Balagoon of Weill Cornell Medicine. They have achieved significant milestones, from completing rigorous market research programs to securing vital funding and creating strategic partnerships.
Speaker 1:Recognized as an expert in survivorship and innovation by the World Health Organization, eve's impactful story has resonated with many across platforms like the Washington Post, Insider, thrive Global and ABC7 New York. Most recently, she was at the White House. And listen in, because she's going to tell you what that experience was about. In this episode, we talk about how she disclosed her health crisis to her job, the three things that she needed from human resources and leadership, how she had to uncondition herself to recover, what it took to recover for her from a diagnosis and return to work, and how systemic gender and racial inequalities play a significant role in health outcomes. What she also did to transform her talents and skills to create Mission Driven Tech. And what you can do about this solvable public health crisis. Friends, listen in. Eve's story is so inspiring and really powerful, and if you have any questions, email us at hello at jillgriffincoachingcom. We'll get them to Eve and she'll get them answered. Friends, I'm wishing you a very inspiring and impactful week and we'll see you next time.
Speaker 2:Hi Eve. Welcome Hi Jill. Thank you so much for having me. I'm glad that you're here.
Speaker 1:Let's get to it. So, as you know, the question I ask everyone when we start is tell us, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Speaker 2:When I was a little girl I wanted to be a writer and I wrote everything. I wrote poetry, I wrote short stories, I wrote little chapter books. And as I went through school and as I came into high school, I joined our high school newspaper and that was like the pinnacle for me. I thought I would be an investigative journalist. I was in the DC area, grew up there and thought, okay, this will be my career. I'll go to school, return to Washington and break big stories. And things happened a little bit differently but serendipitously I am writing again and, I'd like to think, also breaking some pretty big stories.
Speaker 1:Yes, that totally makes sense and, as our listeners will hear from your story, how storytelling is a big part of the work that you're doing. So you were an executive at Google. You had a great job, you loved your job, and then take our audience through what happened.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. So I have shared this story pretty broadly because I want to use this story as an example to spark change. So in 2020, I had been at Google for almost 10 years and I was getting ready for my second maternity leave. I was pregnant with our son and during a routine OBGYN checkup in preparation for his delivery, my doctor discovered a tumor on my cervix and I was diagnosed with stage 2B cervical cancer.
Speaker 1:Even as you say it again, and I know today you're okay, but it still just gives me so like it gives me chills.
Speaker 2:It's terrifying and I would like to say that this is uncommon and unusual, but that's actually not the case. Cervical cancer diagnoses are on the rise among women 30 to 44 women and persons with the cervix and I should say I'll use women in an inclusive capacity through our conversation. When I use that word, I am specifying a person who identifies female or person who has a cervix, and the data around this disease state is both fascinating and it's tragic. And so, someone coming from a background at Google where I understood industry level trends, change management and how to use technology to drive results, I thought, gee, this is really interesting. If I survive this and I make it through, this is really an area where I want to spend my time making a difference.
Speaker 1:So how did you navigate that? I mean, it's possible, like we know from the Social Security Administration, that if you are 20 years old, you have a one in four chance of being temporary or permanently disabled or having an illness by the time you retire, which is, you know, 63, 65 depending on how you look at it. So, based on that, effectively it's one in four is 25%. How did you navigate that? I mean, you're in a job that you think you're, you know this is your career, and then suddenly you're sick. Now again you work for one of the top employers who has amazing benefits, but that still doesn't mean that it was easy. So tell us how that ball played out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. You know, very simply, it was a catastrophe. It was. You know, the lived experience is incredibly challenging and you'd never want anyone else to go through this.
Speaker 2:Now you mentioned that I was an employee at Google at the time and I had access across the board to statistically unachievable resources and world class treatment and care that most women with the same diagnosis do not have. So the reason I had such an extraordinary outcome was I had incredible healthcare. I had a clinical team that addressed my case with such urgency and speed to treatment. There was no delay in care, no waiting, no, you know, pre approvals, no, any of that, it was just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, exactly.
Speaker 2:And then I was also, you know, on maternity leave, which was an enormous amount of leave time to begin with, and then I was able to access additional leave baskets where I was able to extend that leave. And so when you go through a diagnosis like this that requires, you know, intervention, treatment and recovery in a really extensive way After cervical cancer treatment, you are a different person. You, as a woman, live differently. After this diagnosis, I was able to have time and space away from work that had full benefits and pay associated with it so that I could properly recover, and each of those assets is something that is available to very, very few women, which is again one of the driving forces behind what you know I've come to learn as a statistically unusual, extraordinary outcome from my diagnosis and treatment.
Speaker 1:So take us in. I'm curious and I know our listeners will be two about the two parts of it. One is if you could speak directly to the HR business managers or the HR benefits people right now, what would you give them as best in class? You know, not every company is going to be able to afford the same level of benefits to their employees that Google did, but it was also how Google handled it with you that enabled something that was so tragic and, as you said, horrific being a little bit easier. So any best in class that you could share there. So the people who've never been through this before want to show up for their employees. What should they do?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I think that's a great question, and so much of it comes from our own ability to use our voices and ask for what we need. One of the things that is so particular to cervical cancer, and one of the great limitations in terms of the barriers that this disease creates is that there's enormous shame and stigma. Cervical cancer more than 99% of cases are caused by the human papilloma virus. It's a virus that every person on this planet contracts at some point during their life and in some instances, when a healthy immune system cannot mount a response and clear the virus, it can turn into cervical cancer.
Speaker 2:Now, that is not a comfortable statement that I would say. Four years ago I had any familiarity or confidence in it. Was actually the opposite, I had been a very, very public person at work and very confident, and then, all of a sudden, I had this diagnosis and I was like I feel shame, I feel stigma, I feel like I can't even tell these people I've worked with for 10 years what's going on. And it was a real lesson in learning to find myself again and discover my own confidence and then really begin to use my voice there. So what I would say is, as an HR professional is, you know, understand the nuance to a disclosure like this. It's not just a condition, it's the whole of the condition, it's every psychological and psychosomatic you know experience for the employee. So there's a lot that comes with the disclosure of a diagnosis like that.
Speaker 1:What I'm hearing for our listeners, and it's not just about the actual health care benefit. It's about potentially the mental health and the mental wellness and the post care benefits that you would need to and how to carry you through that period of time.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. It's about psychological safety. It's about realizing that I can share this with someone and, even if the policies aren't in place to protect me as adequately as they should, I feel safe, I feel supported and I don't feel judged. And I think, with medical conditions more broadly, it doesn't have to be cancer, right, it could be a health challenge, it could be an injury, it could be dental work, whatever it is. You know, we don't want to be perceived as weak or unable to perform, because what would that say about our progression through our careers or through this company? And to realize that, hey, you know, we're all humans here and humans get sick and there's a wide spectrum of what that looks like. Being able to meet that person where they are and figure out what they need and how they can feel supported through this journey really makes the difference in you know where we spend a lot of our time at work.
Speaker 1:And how did you then handle? So that's the HR benefit side of what went on. How did you handle what? I know, you know I've been in that experience too with my own disability, the stress of like, but I got to perform. How do I handle that? And how did you handle that aspect of the time off? And yes, you are protected with the various laws out there that you know you can go on Family Medical Leave Act and come back, you know, to your job when you're ready. But how did you handle the workload conversation which means like hey, I'm not going to be around for a bit.
Speaker 2:It was really disruptive and it was really challenging to my identity. Like I mentioned, I wanted to be a writer when I was little and over time, that became looking like how do I work in the business of journalism and what is that? That's advertising and marketing, and so I have worked on a quarter for my entire professional career. Right, you know, those 13 weeks and the business outcomes from those 13 weeks drive so much of your professional success. So the first thing was releasing myself from these time constraints. Recovery is not time bound. Recovery is nebulous and, frankly, it's a wilderness and it can be a really isolating experience. The second thing that was happening at the same time was that the COVID-19 pandemic had started in the middle of treatment, and so, you know, my family and I went from what was a pretty meta existential crisis, with my cancer diagnosis and our son arriving at the same time, to now the world's on fire and everyone.
Speaker 1:Again, I'm getting chills. I can't even imagine what you and your family were going through, not only physically, but the mental anguish of what you were also going through at the same time.
Speaker 2:Yes, I mean, I don't even know what to say.
Speaker 2:Jill, and I don't really want to take you back into the no it's not that, it's that we need more people to recognize that this is what it takes to survive these things, and when you survive and you come through with a message, it's like doubly important and you know it's. It's again. It all became an opportunity, but of course it didn't start that way. So you know, really this time for me after my diagnosis, through recovery, was almost like an unconditioning of everything that I had known about myself and expected for myself in my career and watching it start to take shape differently.
Speaker 2:And then finally, once I had these learnings of what my diagnosis was, the statistics behind cervical cancer diagnosis for cases like mine and how my diagnosis behave differently from most women with a stage two B diagnosis, and then realizing that our health systems and our society, writ large, was built upon these systemic gender and racial inequities that let cases like mine and so many women's happen, when cervical cancer is totally preventable, treatable and curable.
Speaker 2:And then also all the suffering that we were seeing in the COVID-19 pandemic, also caused by a virus. And so I'm looking at this and I'm thinking like holy shit, this is like pattern recognition and trend calling everywhere, and if we could just get some really incredible leadership on what's happening within cervical health and how we can take what's happening now and address these systemic barriers. We might actually have a shot at elimination, and that's what I want to do. And so that time, you know again, as damaging as it was, it kind of like revealed to me what I cared about, what I was talented in doing, and then really like the work that I wanted to do once I was well.
Speaker 1:I mean just just an incredible level of resilience and mindset of a foundation that I'm curious to know. Did you know you had that, or was it this that you were like, oh it is in there, it just needed to be uncovered.
Speaker 2:And I would love to say this is how I've always been and I think you know hallmarks of resilience and tenacity, determination, always there. The application, how I was spending my time and with whom. That was very different, and what I came to understand was that talents and skills are transferable and they move across industry and if we are capable at lifting above the work that we do every day and looking at things from a 30,000 foot view down and grassroots effort up, all of a sudden you know we can operate in a very different way, both personally and professionally. So this was a real like highlighting and illuminating, but then it became just practice. This is where I want to go, this is what I want to do. How do I get there? And then the reps to do it.
Speaker 1:So you've had some tremendous opportunities and created even more opportunities since this. What was the discernment to then decide? You know what? I'm not going to go back to my job at Google. I'm going to get involved in mission driven tech and cervical health. So take us to that part of your journey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and I had an incredible career at Google and it is so much of the platform that has enabled me to do this work and you know the resources that I had, the leave that I had, the training that I had those are all, again, reasons why I'm even here having this conversation. So you know, I have so much gratitude for Google and I did go back after my diagnosis and work before I left, to launch mission driven tech, but one of the things that I had learned at Google and I thought that this was just fascinating in my witnessing of this happening in real time while I was there. So for my last I think seven years or so at the company, I worked in really interesting industry level roles where I was supporting Google leadership across various private and then public sector industries and I was working with the leaders to determine, okay, how and what do they need to grow their businesses and what solutions in the marketplace solve those problems or challenges to unlock that growth both for industry and for Google. And then what technology do you need in place to actually make that happen? And so I did this for a number of industries and then my last role was running YouTube's business strategy for the public sector during the lead up to the 2020 presidential elections, and what I learned from working with these leaders and then working across industry and working with partners in the market was that there were sort of two tenants to creating that type of industry level change. One was the thought leadership so to look at an industry or look at a field or look at something that doesn't even exist yet and then know that there is a future that you can see and, if others work with you, you can get there. So, having that type of perspective, that point of view and that thought leadership to understand, okay, this is what it means to call a trend, this is what it means to build or advance an industry and what's my unique perspective on that. So that was one quality I saw espoused really well in the leadership. And then the second was having the technology to back it up. You have to have a big vision to see this type of change and then act on it, but then you need the products or the services to actually make that happen. And at Google, there was both there was thought leadership and there was great technology.
Speaker 2:And when I found myself in cervical health and having lived through this diagnosis and I'm looking at the data and I'm not understanding, like why do we have diagnoses and death when we have a vaccine to prevent this outright? We have screening that works really, really well for early detection and early treatment that can reach care. Why do we have diagnoses rising and death rates stagnant for 50 years? Which is which is 50? 50, five decades? You cannot find that anywhere else in cancer care where an outcome today is as bad as it was in the 70s and I thought, if we can just double click on this I wanna scream right now Cause you and I know why.
Speaker 2:We know why. Systemic gender and racial inequity yeah Like it cannot be more simply put than that. This would never happen in a disease state where men are affected. And we know that because when you look at prostate cancer outcomes from the 70s, where prostate cancer outcomes in the 70s, where we're comparable with cervical in the 70s, now five year survival rate from prostate cancer is almost a hundred percent and cervical has not moved, and it's a result of the lack of investment, which means there's a lack of scientific research, which means there's no innovation.
Speaker 1:And no education, right? I mean, I would imagine that medical doctors are not also getting the education because there's no research there for no investment, no research, no education and therefore no way to put it into the market.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly, and so we, as the people who have a cervix, are accessing this care system that could work, is in a full proof capacity to prevent, screen and treat diagnoses so that no one died from this disease. No one has to die from this Okay.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and so I thought okay, I have a point of view on what's happening here. I also now am talking to the stakeholders here. I'm talking to my doctors, I'm talking to the best people in this field, and they are frustrated. They don't have the tools. They are devastated to have to treat women who have preventable cancer when they could be spending their time tackling issues that can't be cured today, right, and they're seeing this devastation on their doorstep every single day.
Speaker 1:And I thought You're like your brain is starting to churn. How my brain point technology and a unique point of view and perspective together.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly, and so from that point forward, it could have been any group where I could go and get this great work done, and it just so happened that I had an incredible green light from wild Cornell Medicine and one of my treating physicians, dr O'Naniel Balagun, who is so absolutely phenomenal, and she herself was incredibly frustrated by the dated tools that she had to perform these curative brachytherapy internal radiation procedures that have not been updated since the 1970s. Right, and I thought so you both. Actually, she didn't show before, right, right and somethingading forward.
Speaker 1:Ultimately, To take our listeners through that, like you and your doctor actually created a new medical device.
Speaker 2:Yes, we have invented a new technology that we are developing now which is just incredible.
Speaker 1:So take us through then. Okay, so you leave Google. You form Mission-Driven Tech. Yes, tell us now the journey now, because I know some of it which is so exciting and I'd love for you to share, but tell our listeners what has happened and the work that you're doing now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Absolutely. So it's really those two work streams that I discussed up at the front. It's thought leadership and it's technological innovation. So much of the work that we do falls into those two streams because lessons we know from media. You have a compelling message, you know who needs to hear it and so what do you need? Reach and frequency. That's the thought leadership and that's the spotlighting it From this conversation that we've just had and the response that we see in the room when you tell people who know not even that much about cancer research and you say these outcomes have been stagnant for 50 years, it just doesn't track.
Speaker 2:So there is a tremendous amount of buy-in that we've had from our collaboration of bridging this tech and business and media background with incredible expertise in medicine, public health and global health and having these networks come together and really start to support our work. So a lot of it is the visibility that, hey, this is a problem. This is an incredibly dated field of medicine that could be brought into the 21st century and have enormous economic and societal gains for the world, as estimated by World Health Organization. Now we just need the tools to get that done. So that's one part of our work and then the other part of the work is actually the technological innovation. How do we build and get to market a new medical device that offers safer procedures for women, so more women are able to access and endure these procedures and then ultimately have a quality of life outcome that is acceptable for cancer treatment today?
Speaker 1:Yes, I mean when I was looking at and I'll put everything in the show notes to our listeners but when I was looking through the New York Presbyterian Cervical Cancer Awareness Campaign and of course you're part of that and reading through and the excruciating pain that someone with cervical cancer must go through in order to help be cured and to be treated, I mean I can understand why people would want to stop the treatment because of how I mean and then everything I've read about how painful it is, which is one of the things that the device that you have created is going to address. Do you want to talk about that a bit?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. This is what's so important, because when we talk about cure and my partner, dr Balagun, will say this much more eloquently when we talk about cure for cervical cancer, we can't talk about it without brachytherapy. Brachytherapy is the difference between surviving your diagnosis and risking recurrence or death. Unfortunately, what happens in care today as a result of treatment with medical devices that were designed in the 1970s 20 years before women were even included in clinical trials is that as many as 25 percent of women drop out of these procedures because they're so painful, traumatic and brutalizing. Frankly, this is not the first area in women's health where women's pain has been minimized. Sure, it's just so much more heightened and unacceptable because we're talking about cancer care. We're talking about something where there's no choice.
Speaker 2:You need to go through this to survive, to have to go through that in this particular way, when, again, engineering has advanced so significantly that you can design a device that fits the female anatomy better and then produces much less trauma and fewer complications as a result of it just being properly designed for the female anatomy. That's the goal here that a woman is able to access treatment. She knows it's not going to be a cakewalk, but she also knows that she can get through it. She knows that the treatment has been designed with her as a woman and a quality of life she deserves. In the aftermath, as part of the design, that's really what we're doing is a modern device that is designed to safely fit a female anatomy and then produce less pain and less trauma with the insertion and removal, whether she's having care here in America or in a global setting. Again, it's easier to access, it's safer and it's less painful and less traumatic.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's just an incredible. The whole part of it is an incredible journey from your own experience to then again being able to have the aware, with all the thought, leadership and the resources to tap into. How do I change this? That other people don't go through what I've been through. Then I know in the last 18 months you've also had some tremendous accomplishments with getting mission-driven tech out there and what you're doing out there, but most recently you were at the White House a few weeks ago. I'll answer there's about that.
Speaker 2:It was one of the most surreal moments of my life and being from Washington DC and having an opportunity to be invited to the White House and then share my remarks and perspective as someone with lived experience on cervical cancer elimination. I mean, I write my career. Yeah, absolutely, I'll tell you from the very beginning of doing this research on the field and trying to figure out okay, I'm seeing this data and I'm seeing these trends and I am infuriated. This is so unacceptable. Who else cares? Who else in the world sees this as a solvable public health crisis with existing tools and then a bit more funding so that we can close those research and innovation gaps? To really get us there, I came across the World Health Organization's Global Elimination Initiative, which they established in 2018, which basically was an acknowledgement that all the tools to eradicate this disease exist. Now it's a matter of local commitment from every country's government to say we're going to prioritize the health of women, because women are the backbones of our societies and our economies. What does it take to get that done? To me, that was the first signal that global leadership really understood this as a huge problem, but also a solvable problem. What I learned from my time at Google was how do you get things done? You go to the top. You sit at the top, so you get to go to the top. So much of the work that I get to do and what we get to do at Mission-Driven Tech is a result of brokering these really high-level partnerships with global leaders who are in a position to do something about this.
Speaker 2:When I had the opportunity to speak at the White House, I felt really ready. I felt like this is a moment and a message that I have been waiting for, the microphone on and to have this platform in really such a short amount of time. I think it's a reflection of one the interest in this space to do something and the real coalition building that has existed. I entered in and had an opportunity to really help galvanize in our particular sphere but also that what God is here today is not going to get us to elimination.
Speaker 2:We've had a vaccine for 20 years, but we have to fight misinformation in order for that vaccine to be as effective as it can be. We've had screenings since 1950s, but if women don't know what it means to receive an abnormal result and you need to go back in for follow-up care, then it doesn't matter that she had screening, she gets to treatment, but she can't get through brachytherapy because it's so painful and traumatic, then it doesn't matter that we have treatment. That's really my message that we have the foundation and the building blocks, but this field needs to reflect the best of modern medicine and modern technology so that we can actually get to elimination, which again, is totally achievable. But it takes that investment and then the cascading effects of that Capital, which turned into research and then innovation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, If anybody listening now who is unfortunately experiencing something within cervical health or wants to create awareness because they actually care about the women in their lives, what would they do? What would they research? What's the advice for them?
Speaker 2:That is a great question and I'm so glad that you brought that up. So number one is to start to pay attention to your body, to recognize anything that seems irregular, so that could be spotting in between periods, that could be manifesting as pain, that you can't, you know, figure out what the root cause of it is. That could be anything that's sort of just irregular in you know. Trust your intuition and then call your doctor and describe and detail your symptoms. And in that appointment, and particularly for cervical health, it's really important to do two things. One, you need to ask to be screened for HPV because, again, hpv is the virus that causes cervical cancer. And if you have a high-risk strain, you need to work with your doctor on a management plan for how to track that infection and understand whether it's getting better or whether it's getting worse over time. And then the other thing to talk about is what your indicated screening schedule should be for cervical cancer. Now we and when I was growing up, you know, I learned about the PAP test like early I didn't know what it meant, but I just know, you know, eventually I'm going to grow up, I'm going to be a woman, I'm going to go to the doctor I'm going to have this thing called a PAP test. Well, the PAP test used to happen every single year, and so it was a really helpful tethering function to your annual well-women's exam. But the spacing has actually On two years yeah, two or three or five and it's all based on your personal health history and your risk factors.
Speaker 2:And so we don't have and you mentioned this earlier about the lack of education around this we did a research study with University of Missouri last year to understand awareness and perception among adults 18 to 24 in this country for HPV and cervical cancer, because we wanted to pull the folks who are closest to public school sex education. What information education did they have now as young adults about this disease? Zero. This is not taught in public school sex education, which means that the onus is on parents, it's on the community and it's on our medical professionals and when it's on everyone. But you know the person who's giving the education. Well, sometimes that falls through the cracks. So we need to be confident and comfortable with our doctors having a conversation around what are my risk factors, when do I need to be screened and if there is anything that needs to be handled with follow-up care or intervention or treatment. What does that look like and what is the system for me to get through that successfully?
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, so again, we're going to recap those steps and have them in the show notes so that people know what they can do, both personally or, again, telling the women in their lives that they care for that. This is that. This is things that we need to look at Absolutely. And then Jill.
Speaker 2:one more thing I need to say is that this is so normal. At least 25%, so at least one in four, women who are screened for cervical cancer will have an abnormal pap at some point in their lifetimes, which means that they could potentially be at risk for developing cervical cancer. But we hear that word abnormal and we're like what does that mean? And does that mean like everything? Does that mean nothing? Is it important? Do I focus on it? Do I ignore it? Number one getting an abnormal result.
Speaker 1:You get that letter in the mail about a week or so after your medical exam is. I guess what we're saying there is it is normal 25% of women to get an abnormal and it's something that call back your doctor and follow the process of whatever they tell you in that letter to go and dig deeper and see what it actually looks like.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and that letter and result. They don't have to be a secret, because when I started this work, the number of women who told me in secrecy, in my close girlfriends, in professional contacts at work, at people I've never met before. But I found through the internet the number of people who've had abnormal pap's some sort of intervention, some sort of treatment is incredibly high and incredibly common. But because of the shame and stigma around it it doesn't get any airtime. We don't talk about this. It's not polite cocktail conversation, but we need to because we're affected. And hey, by the way, men also get HPV related cancers. Head and neck cancers are also on the rise among men, and so they're also at risk. And so again I go back to what we learned during COVID we can talk about a virus in a very public way to tackle the effects of what it means to be infected, and this just so happens to be a virus that can and does cause cancer, and so we have to be talking about it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And that awareness is going to precede the change. We need to create that awareness Exactly. Thank you so much. Again. I'm going to put all your information in the show notes. I mean not only is your experience and your journey harrowing, but, I think, understanding. I mean it's in the name of your company, mission driven tech that having gone through an experience and then using that experience to help others so that they don't have to go through the same experience, I think is such a beautiful part of your journey and others, journeys that are making people just doing what you can to create positive change in your community. And everything will be in the show notes that they can see. You know, even the I mean watching the Well Cornell Medical Center in the New York Press advertising campaign and seeing you I'm like wait, that's so amazing. So thank you for sharing your story.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and then Jill. The one other thing that I would say, because this was a real sort of empowerment moment for me was realizing that there are so many new initiatives, startups, companies, et cetera, in women's health that have launched in the last I don't know, say five to 10 years, because FemTech, as they call it. Yes, exactly Because women like us who've come up through corporate careers have had some sort of health need or crisis and realize, hey, this incredible state of the art technology we've been using and advertising and media, wait, it doesn't yet exist over here. And what could that do if we brought it over? And so to realize that so much of the growth and innovation that's happening in this field is a result of women who have our backgrounds, who are saying wait, a minute, I care about my health and I care about the health of every future generation, and now I want to take my professional experience and pivot it over here to make a change in difference. There's nothing but opportunity here.
Speaker 1:And transferable skills right. Using that data in different ways to be able to create change.
Speaker 2:Exactly exactly. So anyone who's listening, who's thinking like, hey, I want to fix this and I want to try to leverage my background to solve for something that I've experienced or someone in my life has experienced go, yes, do it. Yes Will have impact and can create change, and it makes a difference for everyone yourself, your community and the world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I completely, completely agree Again, eve. Thank you so much for being here. Listeners, if you have questions, as always, email hello at JillGriffinCoachingcom. We will get them to eat. We will bring her back for an FAQ show Listener questions. Whatever it is that you want to know, email us and we will get them to you. So I appreciate all of you for listening. Thank you so much for being here.