Ava Saidian, MD, on the need for sexual health assessments in female patients

In this video, Ava Saidian, MD, reflects on the psychosocial challenges that women with bladder cancer face, as well as how urologists can better support their needs. Saidian is a urologic oncologist and assistant professor of urology at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, Tennessee.

Video Transcript:

That's a really good question. I think we as urologists need to be better at evaluating the female patient. We're taught the basics of a pelvic floor exam, but we're not really good at talking to female patients about their sexual health. We're very much used to talking to men about that as urologists. I think we have those tools to speak to our female patients about their sexual health and their overall well-being just as well. I've tried to make it part of my routine that as I'm asking my female patients about all their other health care issues, their review of system, I get a baseline on their sexual health. Are they sexually active? If not, are they interested in being sexually active? Are they not active because it hurts to have sex, or simply because they don't have a partner right now? Are they interested in being sexually active after their cancer treatment? What are things we can do to work on their sexual health before, during, and after cancer treatment? I think as urologists, there's lots of tools out there, and it's very much changing our education on highlighting the importance of these topics with our female patients. So, I think that's one way we can support the psychosocial health of these female patients, is making their sexual health a priority and showing them that it's not a taboo topic, and they can open up to us about it.

And also, I think, as urologists, we need to better understand the effects on body image that this has. Whether they're having a neobladder continent diversion or an ileal conduit, what is the impact on their body image in the future, and is that going to weigh heavily on them, and just talking to our patients about it, as well as using a lot of other resources. We only have so much time with our patients, but we want to show them that we support them. So, whether that's just asking them, do they want someone to talk to, a therapist, even a sexual health therapist. Are there financial burdens that they're undergoing that we can potentially help them with. Treating our patients as a person and not just someone with bladder cancer, and trying to help find all their needs is very important, especially in our female patients.

This transcript was AI generated and edited by human editors for clarity.