Though overcoming cancer may seem like the moment when life returns to normal, many post-chemotherapy women find themselves at the beginning of another battle: sexual dysfunction. Although there is a clinical focus on treating certain post-chemo symptoms, sexual dysfunction was largely unaddressed globally until two Yale doctors, Mary Jane Minkin MED ’75 and Elena Ratner, took notice of this problem.
While treating a post-chemo patient, Ratner—then chief resident under Minkin—asked about her sex life. Deeply distressed, the patient told Ratner that her sex life had been destroyed after chemotherapy, yet she was surprised that a physician even asked. After this conversation, Ratner met with Minkin and proposed what would become the Smilow Cancer Hospital Sexuality, Intimacy, and Menopause Program: a first-of-a-kind program at Yale New Haven Hospital (YNNH) that treats post-chemo women who struggle with sexual dysfunction. By incorporating psychologists into the program, Minkin and Ratner’s team successfully helps women in a holistic and compassionate manner. “We want to give [post-chemo women] not only quantity of life; we want to give them a quality of life,” Minkin said.
Since its inception, the Sexuality, Intimacy, and Menopause Program has changed the paradigm of women’s health and inspired numerous similar programs in hospitals across the country and the world. “The most important thing that we have done is normalize the conversation [about women’s health],” Ratner said. Minkin and Ratner expressed hope that the program they started at YNNH is only the beginning of clinical approaches that uplift women who have overcome cancer.