The Femtech Revolution (eBook)

Harnessing Technology to Supercharge Women's Healthcare

Bethany Corbin (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025
361 Seiten
Wiley (Verlag)
978-1-394-33092-8 (ISBN)

Infos

A book for every woman seeking to improve the quality of their healthcare

Femtech, or female health technology, represents a groundbreaking field dedicated to leveraging innovation and technology to address the unique health needs of individuals with female biology. In The Femtech Revolution: Harnessing Technology to Supercharge Women's Healthcare, acclaimed health and innovation attorney, femtech entrepreneur, and influential thought leader Bethany Corbin delivers an empowering new playbook for anyone needing to understand and navigate this transformative new world

This book equips you with the tools to safely and effectively harness femtech and digital health solutions while addressing critical issues like data privacy, device accuracy, and product reliability. Corbin's insights will guide you through the complexities of contemporary women's healthcare and empower you to take control of your health in the digital age.

Inside, you'll find:

• The SAFE Method: Corbin's powerful framework for quickly evaluating and vetting femtech products
• Smart strategies for becoming a savvy consumer of digital health technology that is accurate, effective, and scientifically sound
• A deep dive into the femtech revolution tackling women's healthcare challenges with groundbreaking, tailored solutions
• Privacy protection tips to ensure new healthcare solutions don't compromise your personal data in a post-Roe v. Wade world
• A roadmap for transforming lackluster healthcare through cutting-edge femtech innovations, and the real-life stories of women doing exactly this

Perfect for everyone seeking better healthcare outcomes, The Femtech Revolution helps you confidently explore innovations designed with your needs in mind-and not just those of a system historically built by and for cisgender men. It's an invaluable resource for cisgender women, and trans and nonbinary people.

Bethany Corbin, JD, is a nationally recognized healthcare innovation attorney, femtech entrepreneur, and influential thought leader at the intersection of women's health and law. She's the Founder of Women's Health Innovation Consulting and FemInnovation-organizations dedicated to advancing equitable, cutting-edge solutions in women's health.

Textauszug

Introduction: Femtech Rising

The first time I faced the dire state of women's healthcare, I was eight years old. My mom was my world—fierce, capable, working two full-time jobs, and full of life. But then, little by little, something started to change. Her speech would slur without warning. Her eyelids drooped like they couldn't bear the weight of her exhaustion. Some days, she'd grow so weak she could barely lift her arms.

Then came the scarier moments. She'd forget how to get home from the grocery store, confused and lost in places that were once second nature. I can still see her from the window on her weekend walks, pacing up and down the street, searching for something familiar—unable to remember which house was hers. And then she started falling. The sound of her body hitting the ground, sharp and gut-wrenching, was always followed by an eerie stillness as she lay there, paralyzed. That sound lives rent-free in my mind. It haunts my nightmares and lingers in the symptoms of the illness that continues to torment her today.

For seven years, this became our life—a cycle of uncertainty, fear, and helplessness. We searched for answers in doctors' offices and hospital rooms, clinging to the hope that someone would finally piece together the puzzle. But test after test came back normal or inconclusive, and the experts we trusted failed her. Instead of solutions, she got skepticism. Instead of a diagnosis, she was dismissed. And instead of a carefree childhood, I became her caretaker.

“It's all in your head,” the doctors said. “You're imagining it. Seeking attention.” They discounted her pain as though it were a nuisance, a fabrication. An outright lie. I watched as the vibrant woman I adored was diminished—not just by her illness, but by a healthcare system that refused to see her. She lost her jobs, going from a driven career woman to someone they labeled an invalid. Without a diagnosis, she couldn't qualify for disability, leaving our family in financial freefall. My dad had no choice but to move to another state for a higher-paying job, desperately trying to fill the financial void, while I lay awake each night, wondering if my mom would survive until morning.

By the eighth year of trial and error—eight long years of misdiagnoses, indifferent shrugs, painful tests, and a parade of doctors who made my mom feel like a mystery no one cared about enough to solve—we finally had an answer. At the Mayo Clinic, a specialist diagnosed my mom with hypokalemic periodic paralysis. It was a moment of relief and rage all at once. Because here's the maddening truth: Her condition wasn't hidden or impossible to detect. Sure, it was rare, but the clues were there from the very first appointment. Low potassium levels? Check. Thyroid issues? Noted. Muscle weakness that came and went? Textbook. In hindsight, her charts practically screamed the diagnosis.

And yet, for nearly a decade, no one was listening. Instead of connecting the dots, doctors ignored them. Each missed opportunity felt like a betrayal—not just by one doctor, but by a system designed to overlook women like my mom. It wasn't that her condition was too complex; it was that no one thought her story was worth piecing together.

My mom's experience left a mark on me that never faded. As I grew older, I started to see the same patterns everywhere. Women were being overlooked, underserved, and dismissed—not just in healthcare, but across industries that claimed to help them. It wasn't subtle, either. The stories piled up, each one more infuriating than the last. I realized I couldn't sit by and watch it happen. Those experiences lit a fire in me, one that carried me all the way to law school. I wanted to fight for women like my mom. I wanted to fight for all women.

In 2018, while teaching law at Wake Forest University, I came across a term that changed everything for me: femtech. The word was still new, but it immediately caught my attention. It felt like a glimpse of what could be—a chance to rewrite the script for women's health and wellness. I dove in, dedicating my scholarship to studying this emerging industry. But research wasn't enough. I didn't just want to analyze femtech from a distance; I wanted to be part of it, to immerse myself in the waves these innovative founders were making.

For three years, I poured myself into femtech. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the world of digital health exploded almost overnight, and with it came a surge of opportunities—and challenges—in femtech. Suddenly, my workload multiplied as I raced to keep up with the rapid growth and innovation happening in the industry. By 2021, my schedule was so packed that I almost canceled my annual physical just to buy myself an extra hour. Ironically, I was so busy that I forgot to cancel in time. Not wanting to pay the no-show fee, I begrudgingly kept the appointment, expecting nothing more than a quick in-and-out visit.

“Are you pregnant?”

This question caught me off guard, coming from my doctor as her cold, gloved hands pressed firmly on my abdomen during a pelvic exam. I let out a short laugh.

“Not a chance.”

“Are you sure?” she pressed, her voice firm but with an odd undertone I couldn't quite place. For a fleeting moment, it almost sounded like hope—like she wanted me to say yes. As if being pregnant was the only explanation she was prepared to accept for whatever she had just felt inside me.

“I'm positive,” I replied. “There's no way I could be pregnant.”

She paused, her hands still for a moment, then disappeared briefly. When she returned, she held a flexible tape measure. Without a word, she stretched it across my stomach, glanced at the number, then at my chart, and finally shook her head.

“You have a pelvic mass,” she said, snapping the tape shut.

I was stunned. The words pelvic mass echoed in my mind, heavy and ominous. My thoughts immediately jumped to my aunt and a high school classmate, both of whom had recently passed away from ovarian cancer. Could this be the same thing? Panic hit me like a wave, my heart racing as I frantically searched my memory for any warning signs—pain, discomfort, something—but I came up empty. That's why I'd planned to cancel the appointment in the first place. I felt fine.

But as my mind spiraled, fragments of the past few years began to surface—symptoms I had casually dismissed, convincing myself they were normal. The bloating that seemed constant. The stubborn weight gain no doctor or nutritionist could explain. Stretch marks that appeared overnight as my lower stomach grew quickly in size. Waking up multiple times at night to use the bathroom. Even my inability to lay on my stomach without feeling like something was pressing back at me.

And then it hit me: I had ignored and dismissed my own symptoms in the same way doctors had ignored and dismissed my mom's symptoms. In a world where women's healthcare isn't prioritized, we're even taught to devalue our own pain, to downplay our own bodies' warnings. I had absorbed that message without even realizing it, pushing aside what should have been red flags until they were impossible to overlook.

“I've scheduled you for an emergency OB/GYN appointment this afternoon,” my doctor continued. “It's probably a fibroid. They're common—lots of women have them.”

“Oh,” I sniffled, trying to process. “So there's an easy treatment? Like a pill or something to get rid of it?”

The doctor let out a soft laugh, the kind that stings. “Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head. “We don't even know what causes fibroids. You'll need major abdominal surgery. And even then, there's a good chance they'll grow back.”

Dazed, I nodded and gathered my things. The weight of her words didn't fully hit me until I was in my car, tears streaming down my face. It wasn't sadness—it was fear. Fear of what this meant for my childbearing years. Fear of whether I would make it through major surgery. I had so many questions, and I already knew how few answers I could expect.

The pelvic mass was indeed a fibroid—a giant one, about the size of a melon and comparable to a six-month pregnancy. It was crushing my bladder, intestines, and uterus. Five smaller fibroids, ranging from the size of a golf ball to an orange, were also growing inside the uterine wall. Left untreated, they would have kept growing, further displacing my organs and eventually requiring a hysterectomy, permanently ending my ability to have children. To make matters worse, doctors couldn't definitively rule out cancer until the tumors' pathology was analyzed after surgery.

Due to the size of the fibroids, laparoscopic surgery—a minimally invasive option—wasn't available locally, leaving major open abdominal surgery as my only path forward. With my experience in healthcare, I knew I had to advocate for myself, determined to find the best procedure and surgeon to minimize risks and shorten my recovery time. While I trusted my local OB/GYN, I opted to pursue a laparoscopic approach at the institution that had helped my mother: Mayo Clinic. Thanks to advancements in digital health, I was able to consult virtually with the doctor who literally wrote the book on fibroids and collaborate...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 15.9.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Gesundheit / Leben / Psychologie
• Themenwelt: Medizin / Pharmazie
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
• Schlagworte: Digital Health • Digital Healthcare • Digital health solutions • Digital health technology • digital women's health • digital women's healthcare • ehealth • Healthcare • Healthcare innovation • mhealth • women's health • women's healthcare
• ISBN-10: 1-394-33092-8 / 1394330928
• ISBN-13: 978-1-394-33092-8 / 9781394330928