Episode 161: What You Don’t Know About Birth Control & The Fight for Women’s Rights | Dr. Sophia Yen | CEO & Co-Founder, Pandia Health
Roe v. Wade being under threat wasn’t something Dr. Sophia Yen ever imagined in her lifetime. Yet here we are, still fighting for a woman’s right to choose, for bodily autonomy, and for access to comprehensive health education and birth control. As the CEO of Pandia Health, the only female-founded, doctor-led birth control delivery company in the United States, Dr. Yen is making sure women can get the care they need without barriers. We get into the science behind skipping periods, why reproductive rights are essential to equality, and what it will take to make lasting change. Along the way, Dr. Yen shares stories from her journey as a physician, advocate, entrepreneur, and mother, offering a sharp, clear-eyed perspective on where we go from here.
“I am not a second class citizen. You can’t force me under law to do what you want. That’s slavery. My body, my choice.”
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Dr. Sophia Yen / CEO & Co-Founder of Pandia Health
Pandia Health is the ONLY #DoctorLed, #WomenFounded and Led birth control delivery company.
Pandia (Greek goddess)
American Academy of Pediatrics
Vicky Sonders - founder SheEO
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Follow along using the Transcript
Chapters:
00:00 Roe v. Wade and the fight for women’s rights
01:25 How Dr. Sophia Yen became a reproductive health advocate
03:45 Pandia Health’s mission and impact
05:15 Why birth control access is still a struggle
07:10 The science and safety of skipping periods
09:30 Myths about birth control that need to go
11:15 How the U.S. falls short on sex education
13:45 Lessons from Canada’s health education model
15:20 Fighting misinformation about women’s health
17:40 The link between reproductive rights and equality
19:15 Building a women-led health company
21:00 How telemedicine is changing access to care
23:20 Advocating for change at the policy level
25:00 Why women’s health is everyone’s issue
27:15 Advice for women advocating for themselves
Do you wanna continue and give up for adoption or do you wanna terminate the pregnancy? And this young woman chose to continue the pregnancy and I was like, our paths going forward are gonna be so different. It's gonna be so hard for her at as a teenage pregnant mom to get through high school, college, et cetera.
And I would go on to, MITs.
That's Sophia Yen MD and this is The Powerful Ladies Podcast.
Hey guys, I am Kara Duffy, a business coach and entrepreneur on a mission to help you live your most extraordinary life. By showing you that anything is possible. People who have mastered freedom, ease, and success, who are living their best and most ridiculous lives and who are changing the world are often people you've never heard of until now.
Never in my lifetime did I think that Roe v Wade would be in jeopardy. The fact that we're still having debates about a woman's right to choose and to have full autonomy over her body, including access to health, education, and birth control is shocking and disturbing. Today's guest, Dr. Sophia Yen, is on a passionate mission to ensure every woman who wants birth control can not only have access to it, but also have it conveniently delivered to her door as the CEO of Pandia Health.
Dr. Yen is the only female founded. Female run and doctor led birth control delivery company in the us. In this episode, we discuss all things on the path to women's empowerment and liberation, and how birth control is a must have peace of that plan.
Welcome to the Powerful Ladies podcast. I'm so excited to talk to you today. Thank you so much for having me here. Let's tell everybody right away who you are, where you are, and what you are up to in the world.
Hi everybody. I'm Dr. Sophia Yen. My mom said, claim all your titles. So ladies, claim all your titles and I am the CEO and co-founder of Pandia Health.
We are the only doctor led, the only women founded, women led company in birth control delivery. Some of our competitors may have done what I call women washing, which is they swap their CEO out. But I think it's really important that we put our money where our values are. So ask who is the founder, who is the CEO, who owns 50% of the company and is going to get, the profit from it, but also what are the values that this company was built on?
And so about six years almost. Now coming up in March started Pania Health with a bunch of other people. 'cause as a woman, as a doctor, I wanna make sure we had all the elements there before we went on this journey. So we had a pharmacy founder. We had a physician founder myself, we had my sorority sister who was leading up.
All things that I didn't wanna do. We had a marketing, we had a CTO and we also had my original instigator Ola, me, who's just a networker done, startups of four, et cetera. And so five outta six were women, and three out of them happened to be from the same sorority but different colleges. Two of us from MIT.
So we just claim, all sorts of backgrounds. And started this because I was giving a talk to a bunch of physicians. The number, one of the top three reasons why women don't take their birth control is they didn't have it in their hand. And my friend Pearl and I were like, we could solve this. We will just ship it to you and keep shipping it to you until you tell us to stop.
And then, yeah, we ran ads for free birth control delivery. 60% of the people that responded didn't have a prescription. And I'm like, don't you know in the United States you need a prescription. If you want the birth control pill, patch, or ring, and I'm a doctor, I can write prescriptions. And thus, Pania Health is born.
If you need just a delivery, you tell us. Where your medications at, what pharmacy or your doctor can send it right in. You give us the front and back of your insurance card, or we take credit card if you don't have insurance, and then we ship it to you and keep shipping it to you until the prescription runs out.
And two months before the prescription run out, we're like, go see your doctor. Get. A refill. That way you don't have that last minute, oh my gosh, you better my pills. Can anybody fall in like panic and stress for everybody involved? And then if you need a doctor, then we have expert birth control doctors.
And I think it's so important for people to realize that somebody who does something a lot is gonna be much better than somebody who does it once in a while. So I personally wrote 2000 birth control prescriptions over two years, and then looked at the side effects by race. And then also being adolescent medicine and aware of body mass index of age.
And so I think we are the best possible care if you're new to birth control, if you have something you like, we just keep you on it. We might be like, oh, that estrogen's a little low for your bone density. You might wanna bump it up, but we're not gonna make you change if you love what you love.
However, if you're new, I think that we're gonna result in fewer side effects.
Very cool. You covered so many things in that share, which are important and powerful, and I really wanna go back to like, why is birth control and getting it to women so important to you?
I was, pre-med back in high school and I was a volunteer at Planned Parenthood giving out pregnancy tests.
So it was fun to run from the chemical side, those pregnancy tests. But I ran a test at age 15. I was 15 volunteering. Trying to get into college, put on my resume a test for a 13-year-old, and it came back positive and I was like, oh crap. This is just gonna be bad no matter what, and there's no undoing what's been done here.
And she, decided to continue the pregnancy. 'cause at Planned Parenthood, we give them all the options. Do you wanna continue the pregnancy? Do you wanna continue and give up for adoption or do you wanna terminate the pregnancy? And this young woman chose to continue the pregnancy and I was like.
Our paths going forward are gonna be so different. It's gonna be so hard for her as a teenage pregnant mom to get through high school, college, other education, et cetera. And I would go on to, M-I-T-U-C-S. F children's Oakland back to UCSF, then Berkeley, and then Stanford, now CEO, and founder of a company.
What totally different paths and if we'd been able to give her comprehensive sex ed if we had been able to provide to her free birth control. And lastly, if we'd given her the confidence to be like, no, I don't need to have sex right now because I got other things to do. Or if I'm gonna have sex, I'm gonna make sure there's no chance of getting pregnant.
I'm doing birth control plus condoms. And with that combination, it's a very low occurrence of anybody getting pregnant if you do both an hormonal method and the condom. But even now, we have IUDs and implants, which beat vasectomy and tubal ligation. Wow. So there's just so much good birth control and there's no reason that anyone should get pregnant.
And unless you want to. And and I just want to help anybody that wants to prevent unplanned pregnancy to do that because it, it impacts one gender more than the other. The other side says, oh, I'll help you, blah, blah, blah. But they can walk away. You can't walk away 'cause you are the one that's pregnant.
And it's not just the idea of having to take care and raise a child after. It's the what it does to your body, what it does to your trajectory, as you mentioned. Yes. And I saw a great, meme the other day on Instagram about how a woman can only have one child a year, but a man can inseminate.
Yeah. Endless number of women. In a year. So true. Let alone a day if they chose True. Yeah. And one night. Yeah. And so much pressure is on women to manage this and figure it out. And yet we don't make it easy for women to do
exactly. And we calculated women spend 10 weeks of their lives going to the pharmacy.
Waiting for the medication and coming back home and I'm all about hashtags. The hashtag better things to do. Spend that 10 weeks on the beach, spend that 10 weeks getting a massage, reading a book, taking a nap bubble bath, whatever makes you happy. I. So everything else came in the mail. We're like, why not?
Birth control? And certainly there's always been mail order pharmacies, but they're focused on gray-haired people with drugs, six times a day. Weird. Something that women need from two years, well after, from your first period until 50 and I purposely chose Pandia, the Greek goddess of healing light.
Full moon, and I'm all about women's empowerment, goddess and beauty and appreciating ourselves and then made up the definition pan is every and D is day. So we wanna take care of you every day. Set it and forget it. Let us worry so you don't have to, we call that hashtag pania peace of mind.
I love that you're thinking about not just how to solve these problems, but the whole story behind it.
So you know, there are. Such controversies around women's reproductive health. When is it just going to be, that's the options we give people.
My philosophy is that the United States was built on freedom of religion and your body, your religion, my body, my religion. You to force your religious interpretation on my body. Is not okay. I am not a second class citizen, and just because I was raped, I should not be forced to carry anything to term.
And you should have no say about anything that happens to my body. I am not a cow. I am not a, thing that you just state in my body, my choice, your body, your choice, and you have every right to try to convince me to do whatever the heck you want. But to put it in law and to force me under law to do what you want is slavery.
And I will not know, and we as women should pull I think it's called Striata or something like that, where no sex, if we withhold sex, men probably will do what we ask them to do. And so the hard part about birth control and abortion is that abortion mainly, you don't think about it until you need it.
And that is rare, not, it happens in one out of four women, but just like everybody's ashamed, nobody wants to talk about it, blah, blah, blah, blah. Birth control, I think we need to acknowledge has totally allowed women to achieve equality. I like to say you literally have to be a saint to get through college grad school and more, and not get pregnant, right?
Because if you get pregnant in that process, it makes it a lot. Harder and the burden lies on us, and it, it affects those of us who have utero. So birth control has leveled the playing ground. And what we're also doing at Penia Health is thought leadership. So I realized trying to get pregnant that the only reason we bleed every single month is because we didn't get pregnant.
So we build up that lining every month and we're like, embryo, oh no, embryo bleed. And then we build it up again. Embryo. No embryo bleed, and we do that from age 12 and a half to 26 on average. Or for those of us who took longer to find a significant other, had more school, 35 pop out, two kids ish, and then until 50.
And so all this bleeding is unnecessary. And you can use the IUD, the implant, the pill to patch the ring, not for birth control. But for menstrual regulation, and how much better would women's lives be without one week out of four randomly hit by blood and always worrying about it, but also decreasing our hemoglobin, our energy, increasing our risk of ovarian, endometrial, colorectal cancer.
Every time we build, pop out an egg and bleed, and so it becomes no longer birth control, it becomes hormonal treatment, and we've taken away that stigma. Until we can, resolve the stigma of birth control, we can at least approach it from menstrual regulation, hormonal treatment. 'cause the number one cause of missed school and work under the age of 25 in the US of a, not just third world countries, is horrible, painful, really heavy periods.
And whenever I give a talk to a bunch of women, like 30 women, three of them will come up afterwards and be like. My periods are horrible. I can't go to work and I can't explain it to my male boss at, Facebook, apple Netflix and Google. Why I'm late or why I can't go. And it's goodness, if this is happening to you, please see a doctor.
'cause we have the technology to take care of that. And a lot of women are like it runs in my family, my mom has it, my sister has it, my aunt has it, my grandma has it. So it just supposed to be natural. And I was like. It runs in my family to be blind, but I wear glasses. It runs in my family to have horrible allergies, but I take my allergy medicine so I can breathe.
So please, if you are missing school or work or know anyone missing school or work, see their doctor. Use birth control, not for birth control, but hormonal treatment. And if we start this two years after your first period, so 14, and go your whole life, then it won't be a stigma. It won't be a issue. And really yeah, I think that is one approach.
Are there any negative consequences to skipping periods and using the hormonal regulation of birth control that way? Yes. So
the main thing is you do have a slightly ex higher exposure to estrogen, and the question is, does that increase your risk of breast cancer? But they've actually done long-term research of women on birth control.
'cause it's been out since the 1960, so it's been 60 years now, which is relatively new in the things of life. But for young people that are 20, that's three times their lifetime that has been out there. And I like to do things in lifetime. It's fun and. And so with all that data they've shown that the decrease in ovarian, colorectal, and endometrial cancer out risk the slight increased risk of breast cancer.
Certainly if you personally have breast cancer, then no one would suggest that to you, but if you have a family history of breast cancer, it, you have to take it into consideration. But regardless. One out of eight women, I believe is going to get breast cancer. And like most of that is not genetic.
It's just a random kind of mutation. Again, the takeko message is the decrease in ovarian, endometrial, colorectal cancer is much greater than the increase in breast cancer.
And for people who have been on birth control for a long time and they do wanna get pregnant, does it take a while to be able to get pregnant after you've been on it for years?
Yeah. So the answer is no. So the way that we know that birth control leaves yours. System within three days is that's why you have to withdrawal bleed. The way that the pill to patch the ring work is you usually have three weeks of medicine and then you have one week of sugar pills, which is a drop in the hormone.
And the reason you bleed is 'cause the hormone dropped and it's out of your system. So it is absolutely, out of your system by day three 'cause you're bleeding, but if you want zero trace of it, you have to go out five half lives. So by a week. It's out of your system. And I actually gave a talk to some fertility specialist in Taiwan, and I'm like, why am I giving a birth control talk to fertility specialist in Taiwan?
And they shared with me that actually they use birth control for infertility. And again, it's not. It is hormonal treatment, and what it is one in 10 women will develop this thing called polycystic ovarian syndrome during your lifetime. And those women don't pop out eggs. And if you don't pop out eggs, then you can't make a baby.
And so the fertility specialist will put these women on birth control because their hormones are whack, and the birth control will calm down their hormones. And then these women with PCOS hear, oh, I'm gonna have a hard time getting pregnant when I wanna get pregnant. Actually right when you come off, the birth control is the most normal you're ever gonna be, and the hormones are just gonna wackier and wackier.
So as soon as you come off of that as A-P-C-O-S, two weeks later, you know you have your period and seven days after that, assuming you have a seven day period, 14 days after the first day of your period. That is the time to get pregnant. That is when you're most fertile. And so actually being on the birth control pill is used for infertility and two weeks after is the best time to go get pregnant.
The thing that shocked me growing up is how little we are told as women about how our bodies actually work and what we should expect and what's normal and what's not normal. And just the com, the lack of telling us how our machinery works and of course this is non-gender and also applying to like how our brain functions and everything else, but women in particular like, why are we not talking about.
What, how long the cycle is or how it actually works. Like we're told to use, tampons and that's about it. And it's so frustrating that we have lost not just all of this ancient wisdom women have had across cultures and generations, but we've also lost connection with the science of what's actually happening.
Yeah, no, it makes me very frustrated to hear that, even the liberal state of California, we used to only have if you teach sex ed, it has to be medically accurate. And so it would be the liberal districts that teach it and make sure it's medically accurate. But then the conservative districts would not teach it at all.
And only recently have they required sex ed. And even then, it's only like right before your first period. Maybe in seventh or eighth grade, and then again in high school. Whereas in Canada, I love the Canadians. They're so crazy progressive. They teach it every two years, starting kindergarten. And my Canadian friend even said that their principal taught them how to put in a tampon.
And I was like, whoa. Because in the United States, it varies on what you're. Your education is, and what they've decided to teach, how much they decided to teach, if they even mentioned tampon. In, I'm part of, pediatrics and the American Academy of Pediatrics, there's different books on puberty.
They're very rarely mentioned. Tampon. They're like, there are tampons and pads. Go talk to your mom. Whoa, really and I know there are ethnic differences in tampon use. That's another like passion project of mine that at my clinic, at Children's Oakland, at the clinic at UCSF, at the clinic at Stanford that I've worked at.
I'd say it's like. 80% of Caucasians use tampons and 1% of Latinas, blacks, and Asian. And I try to teach people that there's nothing about in the Book of Asian that says you will not use a tampon. It's simply educating the parent that, the tampon going into the vagina is not affecting her virginity, that we need to define virginity.
As having something up your private part for sexual pleasure and ideally of volition because I think people who are sexually assaulted should still be able to claim virginity and it. Why do we even care about that? We should instead just celebrate your first orgasmic sex. That's what we should go for.
But for those people that are caught up in virginity, to know that, the tampon does not affect your hymen. The hymen is not like a, a web, or a cribriform plate as we call it. And so poking the tampon through will not do anything. There are other things that can affect the hymen. It is ridiculous to check the hymen.
Know that there are ethnic differences in tampons. Know that we absolutely should follow Canada's model of every two years starting age five. 'cause young boys find their private parts at age five, and it's all known in pediatrics that the young five-year-old male will masturbate. And so you should discuss that and say it's fine to touch yourself, just not in public and not, just not in public, but also we should talk about that for those of us with uterine too masturbation. And understanding our basic function. And then the other interesting new topic in sex ed is those without uterine should know about it too. I talked to my friend who sent her kids to Catholic school and I was like, oh, that's gonna be horrible education.
But they actually taught the young men that women will have periods. And if you see that she has a bleeding spot, be a gentleman, go, and offer your sweatshirt or jacket. To cover it up, which I thought was adorable.
Yeah. It also breaks down this gender taboo of what we can talk about when we can't, because the second you become a parent, like it doesn't, you, everyone has to talk about it anyway.
But until then, it's oh no. That's that conversation. This is this one. It's amazing to me that, people just don't know. And it actually has led to some really interesting conversations in my life with men in my life who are like, wait, what's going on? And I'm like, how do you not know what this is?
Like you are an adult, you've dated women, you have sisters. How do you not know that this is how it works? And it's shocking to me. It's it's, even knowing like when people can get pregnant, when you can't it's shocking to me how little information is known among women, but also just known across the board for adults who should know these things because it's very important for making any sort of life choices.
Yes.
It's
your
body and you should know how it works.
Yeah. Crazy idea that is, do you see progress happening in, sex education and access to, to birth control changing and getting easier for people or based on some of the things that are happening politically lately. Do you, is it still a challenge and especially for your business to get to everyone that you want to?
I think politically, it's really scary to me. Because I do think this next case that's coming in front of the Supreme Court has the opportunity to reverse Roe v. Wade. And that is what the people that are anti birth control, anti-women, anti-abortion, have wanted. And they've stacked the courts where it's six conservatives versus.
Three people that might support that. Definitely the three would support a woman's right to decide what happens to her body and trust a woman with bodily autonomy and trust a woman to make decisions that we are not a child and we are not property. So I am very concerned for this country that if they reverse it and everybody's saying they will.
Abortion will immediately become illegal in 21 states, 21 states. And then there's five states that are hostile, and I thought Ohio was liberalish, but Ohio was also going the route of Texas where anybody can sue anybody like. You tell on your neighbor and you get $10,000, and like I could see some kid who just gonna tell on everybody, and then women are gonna be stuck in this world where you can't tell anybody anything and live in fear. And just the burden lies on those of us. With uterine, it's not okay. And it scares me 'cause I feel it's too late. There are things we can do. There is the Women's Protection Act and if we can get that passed, that would be key.
There's also the ERA we've never passed the ERA in the United States and I think it just takes one technical thing to do it and, 'cause we've already had all the states ratified that need enough states ratified that need to ratify it, but that. Can also protect reproductive rights and abortion rights.
And certainly we need to make sure that we ask all elected officials where they stand on abortion and women's reproductive rights and birth control. So make sure you vote. Make sure you donate. Make sure you get out the vote. Make sure you tell people, this is my body, my choice, and this is an issue. You cannot.
Compromise on you will not, and we should not allow, and we should have marches and we should withhold sex and we should boycott people. I've told my daughters and they know and we need to tell all the conservative states, you want my daughter. My daughter's brilliant. You want her to go to your college.
She's not going to your college in your state. Because if she gets sexually assaulted, there was like, I think on the books in Georgia, if you leave the state of Georgia get abortion and you come back, they can arrest you. When you come back in and I was like my daughter's not going to Georgia.
My daughter's not gonna Texas or like it. It's just, you need to think about this as people with uterine. You need to think about this as parents. If your daughter gets sexually assaulted, and I think the stat is like one in four college women will get sexually assaulted if she wants to decide what she wants to do.
You can't let her go to any of these 26 states. Cause they'll rest her on the way back. And that would not be, and she's already been raped. How awful to add that, onto that situation For my company, we purposely have not taken on the medication abortion thing. We've had a lot of people push us to go that way.
But I was like, I can't risk my company getting sued or any of my doctors losing their licenses. 'cause some anti-abortion, rabid anti-woman person just wants to sue us or screw us. Something like that. And I purposely made it such that we are doing not just birth control, but eventually we're adding on acne.
We're adding on menopause. We'll deliver all your drugs. So again, you never have to run on the pharmacy. Hashtag better things to do so they can't shut us down specifically, hopefully. The main thing that has limited our growth is investment. So I hope anybody who wants to support reproductive rights and knows people who have money come our way.
Give us money, please. We would love your investment. It's frustrating to see male founded male led birth control companies. Money just falls from the sky. The only women founded and women led, the only doctor led company in birth control delivery, having to go around and beg for money and having a difficult time.
So please join groups like there's different angel groups that don't, that invest in women. There's also CEO, which is a nonprofit that pools together money to invest in women with a no interest loan. And they gave us a hundred thousand dollars and we have to pay it back with no interest. But it's so awesome to have that community support us and and know that there's crowdsourcing, investment opportunities, et cetera, that you could invest in women founded, women led companies, and put your money where your mouth is. Choose all things considered the woman founded, woman led company.
And what always baffles me when people are pro-life or pro no choice, is that they're not more pro birth control.
If we wanna avoid abortion, then we have to educate people and give them birth control. Yes. Let's avoid that whole step if that's what the, your end game is. Yeah. And so if you
want to decrease abortion, give everybody birth control and comprehensive sex ed. Birth control and comprehensive free birth control.
And thanks to Obama Biden under the Affordable Care Act, most insurances have no copay, no deductible for any FDA approved birth control method. So know that if you have insurance, you shouldn't be paying anything for your birth control unless you're specifically saying, I want this brand name when there's a generic available.
And know that 95% of birth control pills are generic. So sometimes I have patients like, I only want this. And it's that's actually generic, so there's just six other generics, don't fight the system, or know that you're gonna have to pay if you want that specific brand.
What surprised you about the reaction from women who have been customers?
I'm just so proud of what we've built at Pania Health that our patient care associates, as we call them provide such great service. So whenever I'm sad, I go to Google Reviews and I read the reviews there 'cause they're like, oh, thank you so much. You saved me time. Oh, I love, the service. I love getting it in the mail and I love the free goodie.
And just the amount of happiness, that we've brought to women. And people ask us to measure our impact and I'm like, we are saving these women time going to the pharmacy. We are giving these women the best possible care by a birth control academic specialist. That I think is, we know things that your doctor doesn't know.
One phrase I like to do for, to catch people is what your doctor doesn't know could end you up pregnant. And the specific example is plan B and it's generics. If your BMI is 26 or greater. It doesn't work. It's as if you ate a tic-tac, which again doesn't work for preventing unplanned pregnancy.
So everybody who's thinking of using emergency contraception, please check your BMI. If it's 26 or greater, eh, plan B is not for you. There's a prescription only emergency contraception, which we provide to our patients who are like, do you want some emergency contraception with that? And it's called Ella.
That one again, under the Affordable Care Act, if you have insurance, no copay, no deductible. If you don't have insurance, we have it at a quite reasonable price. I think it's 40 or 50 bucks. Better than an abortion, right? Better than, a vaginal delivery or C-section. And it works better at every time point, and it works up to a BMI of 35.
If your BMI is 35 or greater, your only hope is the IUD. And our doctors know that. Our doctors also know, because I'm adolescent medicine and adolescent medicine is always worried about bones and nutrition that we're building our bone density until about 30, 35. And so until you're. 30. We don't recommend less than 30 micrograms of estrogen.
So whenever I give a talk on that, women look at their birth control pills and a bunch of 'em like, oh my God, I'm on a 20 microgram. And I'm like, yeah, you need to be on a 30 microgram to protect your bones unless you're already a big bone woman. But even then, if you're a big bone woman, you actually require more estrogen to prevent pregnancy.
So 30 micrograms of estrogen until you're 30. And then the last part is our secret sauce about race. I realized that go, that what I'd been taught at UCSF and Stanford works for a Caucasian female that wants to bleed every single month, but for the rest of us, Asian, black, Latina, or people who don't wanna bleed every month after studying the progesterones.
Change. I made a spreadsheet because I love spreadsheets by the dosage and the drug. Finding the one with the least amount of male side effects, munchies, hairiness, depression, that kind of thing. And the one with the least amount of breakthrough bleeding found a better pill. And so at Pania Health, we start you on this pill unless you are already on one that you like, and then we'll just keep you where you're at.
But if you're new and 90, 95% of our patients do great.
There's so much controversy today about what is truth from doctors and from science, and it's super frustrating for everyone. And I've talked to my primary care doctor and, I asked her about it and she went off for 45 minutes, which I thought was amazing about, what's true and what's not.
And like all the, nonsense is going around. But we have to give space, and I love that you're talking about how you're the expert, because there's always more to learn. There's always more data that everyone would love to have, and we have to remember that so often the information we're given is based on whatever research someone's done or had access to or bothered to look at.
For women, like we're better than men usually about going to the doctor and it's still something we have to do, right? Yes. So needing an expert in we need a nutritionist, we need someone for reproductive health, we need to talk to a fertility doctor. Like it can be so overwhelming. How easy is it for someone to call or email pania and start that process?
Is it a multistep process? Is it pretty simple?
It's pretty easy. So it's asynchronous telemedicine, and thanks to COVID, everybody knows what asynchronous is. So you don't need a video. You don't need a phone. You just fill out 20 questions ish. The same questions I'd ask you if you came into my office.
Do you have breast cancer? Do you have liver cancer? Do you smoke? Do you have any medical problems? Do you have any clots? What drugs are you on? What's worked for you in the past? What are you on now? The same 20 questions. And this protocol has actually been approved by the state of California for pharmacists to prescribe birth control.
So the medical board, pharmacy board and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology of California said pharmacists can write using this protocol, and we added a layer of doctor on top of that. We also need a self-reported blood pressure. So if you've been to a doctor's office in the past 365 days, you can either get online and see what your blood pressure was.
Or call them up and ask, or you can go into a pharmacy or a grocery store or use grandma, grandpa, or your mom or dad's blood pressure cuff. The one I like is fire station hot firemen, but that, but whatever, floats your boat. But go to the fire station, sit calmly for five minutes and check your blood pressure.
They can do it as a service 'cause they're all EMTs. Call ahead of time so that they don't get surprised or angry or anything like that, but, and then you pay us 20 bucks once a year, a total steal. At some point, we need to jack that price up because doctors, as if you were to go see me at Stanford, it'd be like 500 to 700 an hour.
So 20 bucks once a year, and then you get unlimited follow up questions about birth control, not about asthma, not about acne. We're just here for birth control. We're not your primary care doctor. Do not come to us for primary care. Just about the pill that we prescribed you and any issues that you have there.
Unlimited. We have a HIPAA compliant chat, so only during the hours that we're open and you can always hit us up in general for information on our social TikTok, Facebook, YouTube. Our blog has our website has 120,000 hits each month because we have. Information from an academic physician who bases all our, information on evidence and science.
And we also have the second Tuesday of every month at five o'clock Pacific and Espanol. We call it TMI Tuesdays about some topic about birth control or sex or other stuff like that. And then at five 30 Pacific time in English. So anytime you wanna hit me up live, we'll be on Facebook, YouTube, the second Tuesday of every month.
Very cool. So if we go back to 8-year-old, you would, she have imagined that this is what you are doing today?
Not eight year olds me, but nine year olds me. So I love to say I've always known that I wanted to be a doctor, 'cause I love people and I love science. And my mom was a nurse and my favorite uncle was a doctor.
So maybe it was just the wanting to do good and serve people. And my, the reason I say that is because I remember in fourth grade-ish, I was like, mom, you have to buy me three sheets of every sticker. 'cause it's not for me, it's for my future patient. So I got three sheets of every sticker. 'cause it wasn't for me, it was for my future patient, but really it was for me.
But scratch and sniff stickers if you haven't experienced those. Love those. And then as I grew along I was, 15 years old, sexually active pre-med. And I was like, I can I get pregnant? There's no way Uhuh, it's gonna mess up my high school college and 0% of pregnancy. I love Planned Parenthood.
Let's figure out everything they can do and provide me. And it was absolutely about personal, motivation, interest. I have the right to decide what happens to my body if anything happens. 'cause I'm gonna be a doctor. And then liked ob gyn, but then not. So great with surgery. Don't like surgery, don't like delivering the babies.
Don't like the 3:00 AM call. But loved gynecology, loved birth control, and I found adolescent medicine where I could talk to young people before you start your habits of sex and have you start from the beginning, the right. Way with a thin condom, good sensation. I tell everybody, assume everybody has every disease under the sun and just protect yourself and always use a condom and then something hormonal unless you're using the copper IUD or something like that.
But the hormonal stuff works amazing for birth control. So hormones plus condom for STIs, but also just double more protection and then, came upon this thing. What? Like the, one of the top reasons was 'cause women didn't have it in their hand and I was like. I could help people one-to-one. I can help people by teaching the next generation of doctors, which is what I was doing at Stanford as a clinical associate professor.
And now I could affect everybody in the United States and eventually we can go international as well. There's many people that have hit us up and I'm not going international, but I'm happy to franchise it or license it international. 'cause every country has their own. Medical and pharmacy system that I don't necessarily wanna go there.
Or maybe the next, CEO of Kenia Health, we'd go there.
Yeah. Are you available in all 50 states and territories? We can deliver to all 50
states. We can write the prescription in 14 states. I can't name all of them 'cause there are too many now, but the major states plus like Colorado, Nevada, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan.
The places where we thought there were a lot of college students. As well as we encourage birth control tourism. So if you're going to Disneyland, Disney World, Vegas, skiing in Colorado, whatever, and you physically are in a state that we can legally write the prescription, fill out the questionnaire, pay 20 bucks, and then we can ship it to all 50 states,
that's a very interesting way to do it.
And I'm glad that you shared that pro tip. So as you are going into 2022, what are you excited about for yourself and for Pania?
I'm excited because we've put together this amazing team. This year we're gonna focus on building Dr. Sophia Yen brand. And it's not about me, but it's like that's what makes our company different.
Is I like to say, as long as I'm CEO, we will always tell you what's best for your health, even if it doesn't benefit our bottom line, because I've taken the do no harm, pledge. But also that's. My thing, yeah. And so if you ask me what's the best birth control out there, IUD implant, but what can I give you?
The pill, the patch. The ring. Because that's the only thing I can ship by mail. I cannot go. My favorite future is we would have a drone, drop a robot and the robot be like, dingdong, spread them. You put in IUD and then the drone would pick up the robot and come back again. Or the implant maybe in the future.
I always like to say my 12-year-old could put in the implant. You just gotta measure, numb it up, put it in at a bandage, done for three years. There's just great. Form birth control, but you have to go to somebody that can do it. And, but maybe we can teach people. You, we can learn a lot of things. My husband has learned a lot of things on YouTube, so that may be part of the future.
Pania Health, we are building the online health brand women trust, and we are going to expand into acne. I'm of the menopause age, so all my friends are like menopause, evidence-based, science-based because there's some crazy stuff out there. Yes. And women need to know that if it's not FDA approved, there is no guarantee that's what's in there is in there.
And even if they have one research study you gotta be careful 'cause it was sponsored by the company. So it's a little bit in that. 30% of the time placebo works. So maybe the placebo works. But at Pania Health, we're gonna give you stuff that's evidence-based, science backed, or, to the best of our known ability.
My favorite question when I meet people is, what are you using, right? Because if it's good enough for you, the doctor or the practitioner, then it's good enough for me, right? But if you're not using it, then why are you telling me to use it? Yeah. And that's where it comes in, that if you're not women founded, women led, doctor led, they're not using it.
It's nice that they're sympathetic or they're here to make money off you. They don't personally go through this. And so I made this company for me for my menopause needs and my birth control needs. I made this company for my two daughters, so I have an interest until my 12-year-old becomes menopausal and beyond.
And anybody with a uterus. So if the others were doing it at the level that I like and that I want, and that I expect, I would step aside, but I'm not seeing that out there uniformly, especially in the birth control area. So that's why Penia has to exist,
and you've touched on it briefly earlier, but I'd love to go a little bit more in depth on how birth control can truly empower every woman.
So number one, the number one cause of missed school and work under the age of 25 bad evil periods. You treat that with birth control, hormonal treatment, and that will in that will improve attendance school and I think sport. And I like to pitch as a tiger mom of a 12 and a 15-year-old. My 15-year-old is gonna crush your 15-year-old on the SAT.
On soccer, on volleyball and band practice, on every exam, and the example I give specifically is imagine pre-med, MIT biochem, final, all of a sudden bit. And you're like, ha, do I run to the bathroom when I finish the exam? And they answer, you all know, deep in your heart pre-med, you finished the exam.
That's the answer, but it's not cool. And then I look to my left, I look to my right, two people without utero, MIT, and not a care in the world. And what did I, were they, I wanna give my daughters that equal playground. I don't want them hit randomly out of four with blood or suffering. And they've actually shown that iron deficiency before anemia.
If you give those people iron, they do better in math and they have a higher iq. And so we as women being blood let every single month 350 to 400 times in our lives are, I think, iron deficient. And so if we stop that bloodletting, it would. We could perform better in so many things. And certainly, I don't wanna say women are inferior anyway 'cause I love the shirt that says I can do everything you do bleeding.
But my thing is, why do I have to, we have the technology to do that. And then what woman would've gotten through high school college, higher education without birth control. You literally have to be a saint and you are absolutely in denial if you don't realize that 50, 45% of high school seniors. Have had sex.
That's just the reality. And if you take birth control away, it shows that they don't stop having sex. They just have riskier sex. That results in unplanned pregnancy and abortion. A percentage of that, not a hundred percent a per percentage. So if you wanna decrease abortion, please sex ed. Free birth control and ask your elected officials follow your values as well, and freedom of religion.
That is my pitch. You would not want my mom, the Buddhist, running this country because none of us could eat meat. And then there are things about worms and ants you can't step on and houses you can't build theoretically. So your body, your religion, your house, your religion, my body, my religion, stay out of my bedroom, stay out of my body.
Yeah.
When you think of the TA term powerful ladies, do the words powerful and ladies mean something different to you when they're separate? And does the definition change when they're combined together?
I like powerful ladies because I'm all about women's empowerment. That is the whole pania thing, right?
When I think powerful. I think most of us, when we envision powerful, we envision a man because they're the ones that are still running this country. When I look at panels, it's always mans, right? And even then they'll have one woman, but we are 50% of the population. And so every boardroom, every CEO, every company, we should be 50%.
And I've seen this in other countries where they mandate like. 10% or 50%. I think California just mandated a specific percentage for women, and I was like, 10% is not enough. I want equivalent to what our percentage is, of the stockholders or of, but even then, that's biased, right? Women have often been stay at home and we don't get the money and the dudes have the money, so the dudes are technically.
Stakeholders. Stakeholders. But we should have 50%. And again, love California. 'cause we do get 50% in divorce. But not every state is that way. And I'd say we are currently in a state, when you think powerful, you envision a dude, right? We need a woman president. We need more women CEOs. And so again, please put your money where your mouth is and support women's CEOs, but also women founded, women led watch out for this women washing phenomenon we're seeing, but I'm happy that they swapped it for a women CEO.
But no, the difference of a company that was founded and led by a woman versus one that came later.
When you look at the women in your life, how many powerful ladies have inspired you and gotten you to where you are today? And who's someone that you'd like to highlight that is,
so many, right? We always say we stand on the shoulders of those that have come before us.
So I'm absolutely thankful for my mother who has always, as I started this with claim your titles, you know? Yeah. And both my parents because they're like, you can do anything you want as long as you work hard towards, and that's really what I tried to push was she heroes.org, a nonprofit that my sorority sister dragged me into co-founding.
As well as for anybody with the uterus. Tell your young daughter that she's smart and can accomplish anything she works hard towards and that she's beautiful and that will, protect her hopefully in this world. The woman I wanna give a shout out to most 'cause I have her book on my table is Arlan Hamilton.
Thank you for investing in underrepresented people in the VC world. Without you, it would be less. I want to give a shout out to my Springboard Enterprise people, specifically Amy Millman and Ms. Colic. These are women that have started organizations to make sure women entrepreneurs succeed.
And all of my Springboard Enterprise sisters for helping me and supporting me as well as she EO certainly Vicki Saunders, who's the founder. And without her it wouldn't exist. And women's Startup Lab, Ari Horie, just so many women and doctors out there that I've, followed in their footsteps until I came into entrepreneurship in terms of women entrepreneurs, all of the billionaire unicorn ladies that are nice.
But I do wanna give a shout out to Kara. Kara Golden of hint. I always have hint around as an obesity expert, I suggest hint. It's a great thing. No artificial anything, and zero calories. I'm also a huge fan of Farm Girl Flowers. That's another company by Women for Women and has a story behind it.
Stitch Fix, Spanx, oh, of course. Oprah. And Ellen. And my new favorite is Reese Witherspoon. And love Drew Barry Moore. Shonda, right? Yeah. Shonda's. Amazing. So just. So many amazing, oh, of course. Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Gloria Steinem love Ms. Magazine. If you all don't know it still exists.
Subscribe. They have good stuff there. Yeah, so many women and
you, thank you for having me on this show. You're my pleasure. I just feel really lucky that we're in an age when there are so many women that you could list. Because, when I was growing up, I was always told women were powerful. There was Shera was a cartoon and Gemini hologram. Stinky looking. Yes, but badass. Yes. And so the idea that women could do things was being like, it was showing up in my childhood. But seeing women actually doing the work out in the world was limited. And I love now that you see women doing the work and women doing it their way because I think for so long.
It was like having to do it the way the men did it. And it's like, why? Like we, that's, that would be inauthentic for some people. So I'm glad that there are women like you out there who are so passionate and just see the issue and we're fixing that. That's how my brain works. I'm like, that's dumb.
We're gonna fix that. Yes. So yes, to see other women like you doing that it's reminds me that there are, there are women, whether we see them or know them, who we are shoulder to shoulder with, who are out there taking big leaps and fighting the fights every day and how they just live their lives.
And I'm so glad that we've had this conversation about reminding women that we cannot let this issue of reproductive rights and birth control go away. Because it, it is so risky. And I never thought we would have, I never thought in my lifetime, Roe v Wade would be an issue again. So I'm wondering why we're going backwards, because we got other things to tackle, and I'm like, hasn't this already been decided?
I'm shocked that it's a conversation again. So it is going
backwards. We should need to go forward. This is just crazy talk.
Yeah. Yeah. As what else would you like to let everyone know as we're wrapping up anything exciting for you or any other words of wisdom?
If you wanna see my TEDx talk on hashtag periods optional, please go to pania health.com/periods optional.
Please follow us on all of our social media and send all people with money my way that want to invest in our company. Yeah. I also did start a small project. It's called full.co 'cause I wanted our heart full, the sky full, and it's f ffl.co. Female founded, female led and it lists female founded female led companies.
There's many different other organizations like that as well. But please shop female, founded female led companies, and spread the word.
I love it. We ask everyone on the podcast where they put themselves on the Powerful Lady scale, zero being average, everyday human, and 10 being the most powerful lady you can imagine.
Where would you put yourself on that scale today? I'm definitely not
10 because if I were, I would be on the Supreme Court or I would balance the Supreme Court and. Stop this ridiculousness with Roe v. Wade. Also not 10 'cause I'm not president of the United States or do I have many followers on social media?
But being the Asian in me, I cannot go lower than a B, so I'm going with an eight. I like to tell people I have enough confidence for three people, and that's 'cause my parents they put it in me, but also my husband is such a cheerleader. He is my number one cheerleader and he is sometimes more feminist than I and I love it.
It has been such an honor to meet you and talk to you today and to share your powerful message. I can't wait to hear how everyone listening reacts to it. So thank you so much. Thank you so much for this opportunity.
All the links to connect with Dr. Sophia Yen and Pandia Health are in our show notes@thepowerfulladies.com. Please subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening, and leave us a rating and review. They're critical for podcast visibility and to help us connect with more listeners like you, come join us on Instagram at Powerful Ladies.
And if you're looking to connect directly with me, visit kara duffy.com or Kara Duffy on Instagram. I'll be back next week with a brand new episode and an amazing new guest. Until then. Hyper taking on being powerful in your life. Go be awesome and up to something you love.
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Did you know the #1 cause of missed work/school under the age of 25 is painful, heavy periods? For anyone with a uterus, bleeding once a month, check out #PeriodsOptional
See Dr. Yen’s TEDxBerkeley talk on the science and safety of #SkippingPeriods using medication.
Created and hosted by Kara Duffy
Audio Engineering & Editing by Jordan Duffy
Production by Amanda Kass
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Music by Joakim Karud
