Overview: The University of California, Riverside’s Human Resources and Faculty and Staff Wellness team hosted a four-part Women’s Health Workshop series to support women’s sustainable well-being and health. The third part of the series covered the navigation of perimenopause and menopause, presented by Dr. Jasmine Correa, a UCR School of Medicine alumna and minimally invasive gynecologic surgery fellow. Dr. Correa discussed menopause management, recent FDA reversals on hormone replacement therapy (HRT), and the importance of individualized treatment. She also mentioned the lack of menopause education in the field of Obstetrics and Gynecology (OB/GYN) residency training programs.
Thank you for reading this post, don’t forget to subscribe!
Alyssah Hall
In celebration of Women’s History Month, University of California, Riverside’s (UCR) Human Resources and Faculty and Staff Wellness team hosted a four-part Women’s Health Workshop series highlighting multiple aspects of women’s health.
This hybrid workshop series was created to support women’s sustainable well-being and health by bringing together expert clinicians and specialists to offer helpful tools for navigating the many phases of a woman’s health and life.
On March 12, the third part of the series covered the navigation of perimenopause and menopause, virtually presented by Dr. Jasmine Correa.
Dr. Correa is a UCR School of Medicine alumna who completed her residency training at UC San Francisco, and is currently a minimally invasive gynecologic surgery fellow at UCR. She shared a comprehensive presentation which included menopause management, recent FDA reversals on hormone replacement therapy (HRT), and the importance of individualized treatment since everyone’s transition is unique.
Dr. Correa’s presentation began with a discussion about the FDA’s reversal on a decades-long black box warning, which indicates high risk of death or serious injury, on estrogen therapy for menopause.She noted that there will also be an uptick in prescriptions of these medications, but to tread with caution. Dr. Correa further mentioned that there will be huge shortages of estrogen replacement therapy especially in patches.
“This shortage has been a long time coming. We’ve had warnings about hormone shortage in our medical supply chain since 2023 and it’s a component of many factors. Climate change makes our supply chains extremely fragile,” Dr. Correa said. “We try to say medicine is not political, but it is extremely political. A lot of our trade wars recently have impacted our ability to import soybeans, which are primarily manufactured in China, and that’s how we produce a lot of our hormones.”
Dr. Correa stated she is not a menopausal expert due to the poor training in the world of medicine regarding menopause education and treatment. Even though she attended UCSF, claiming it is on the frontline of a lot of menopause related treatments, the training is approximately less than five hours and is rare in clinical practice.
“A lot of this background came from my own learning, buying books, reading, caring for women in my own life that are going through the perimenopause and menopausal transition; doing extra electives to learn how attendings are [] managing hormone replacement therapy and other management options. So, none of this is what doctors are trained to do, which is very unfortunate,” Dr. Correa continued.
A study on the lack of menopause education in the U.S. in the field of Obstetrics and Gynecology (OB/GYN) residency training programs was conducted in 2022 and distributed to 145 OB/GYN program directors (PDs).
“The survey was completed by 99 of 145 PDs (68.3%). Almost all participants (92.9%) strongly agreed that residents nationwide should have access to a standardized menopause curriculum that could be utilized in their programs. Only 31.3% reported having a menopause curriculum in their residency program,” according to the National Library of Medicine.
Approximately two million women in the U.S. enter menopause annually, and between eight to 10 million women experience menopausal symptoms in any given year, according to a 2025 article from AARP.
During Dr. Correa’s presentation, she defined the menopausal transition, that begins with Perimenopause, which is the time from onset of cycle irregularity until the final menstrual period (FMP). Menopause is the cessation or ending of the menses for 12 months. The average age of menopause was noted as 51.5 years of age, while the menopausal age ranges from 45-55, “early” menopausal age ranges from 40-55, and the primary ovarian insufficiency is defined as less than age 40.
“Risk factors for early menopause include smoking, higher BMI, chronic stress and low exercise. And then there are some associations with later menopause in life, which include reduced overall cause mortality. However, as a result of longer exposure to our hormones, we do have increased breast, endometrial and ovarian cancers, but then reduced risk of osteoporosis, fractures and cardiovascular disease as well. So we know there are benefits and risks of our hormones as well,” Correa shared.
Dr. Correa presented a multitude of symptoms of menopause that affect women of different backgrounds differently, including irregular menses, bone loss, cognitive brain fog, genitourinary syndrome of menopause (various vaginal, vulvar and/or urinary symptoms) due to the decline in estrogen levels, vasomotor symptoms (hot flashes and night sweats), depression, and sleep disturbances.
“Eighty percent of folks will have hot flashes during their transition; lucky for that 20% that doesn’t. On average, they can last about seven to 10 years within our transition period, more common in African American women, less common in Chinese and Japanese patients of descent,” Dr. Correa said.
“Always use the lowest dose of hormone replacement for the shortest time possible to effectively treat symptoms…because we do know that over the age of 60, and without higher risk factors, there are risks of being on hormone replacement,” Dr. Correa shared.
She explained an abundance of research and charts on the pathophysiology of menopause organ changes, the history of HRT, management with non hormonal therapy for heat flashes such as weight loss for women with obesity or Fexolinetant.
She also shared resources for participants such as the book, Menopause: What Your Ob-Gyn Wants You to Know and The Vajenda.
