Sonya Carothers, PhD, MSN, APRN, FNP-BC, MSCP

A certified Family Nurse Practitioner with 39 years’ experience in healthcare, Dr. Carothers’ incredible qualifications include certification as a Certified Practitioner from the Menopause Society and a doctorate (yes, she’s a nurse and a doctor) focused on women’s sexual health at midlife.

Why did she pursue the topic? “My husband is a family practice physician and during my menopause journey he said to me, ‘Your arousal is different—what’s going on?’ I realized that if my husband, a physician, didn't understand changes in the female body during menopause, I needed to explore more, and I needed to involve men. So I wrote my dissertation on changes in sexual desire and response from the perspective of both menopausal females and their male partners.”

Once she completed her doctorate, she told her husband: “From this point on, all I want to do is treat menopausal women and speak about menopause. Every single one of us will go through this life stage, but there is so little preparation for it. This needs attention!”

That’s what she’s providing at Midi, treating all symptoms of menopause and taking care to touch on sexual health. “Women think pain with sex and loss of desire is a normal part of aging,” she says, “but it’s not. It’s a part of our hormonal depletion. If sex is important premenopausal, it’s important for the rest of our lives, and we can help.”