Advanced breast cancer outcomes, vulvovaginal disease, and menopause care all show the same pattern: communication breakdowns that hit Black women and other high-priority populations hardest. Dr. Sameena Rahman,Janeane N. Anderson, and Kudzai Dombo, MD, FACOG, MSCP examine where inclusive oncomenopause care actually falls short — and what clinicians get wrong about who's asking for it. Where does shared decision-making break down first?
Sameena Rahman, MD, FACOG, MSCP, IF, is a board-certified OB/GYN, sex-med gynecologist, and menopause specialist, and clinical assistant professor at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine. She is the founder of the GYN & Sexual Medicine Collective, a concierge practice affiliated wit Ms. Medicine that emphasizes compassionate, evidence-based and trauma-informed care.
A Fellow of the International Society for the Study of Women's Sexual Health (ISSWSH), Dr. Rahman serves on its Board of Directors and chairs its Scientific Committee. She is also a Menopause Society Certified Physician and serves on the Educational Committee of The Menopause Society.
Dr. Rahman hosts the podcast Gyno Girl Presents: Sex, Drugs & Hormones and will release her debut book, Brown Girls Disease? A Guide to Sexual Health and Empowerment through a South Asian Lens, in October 2026. She is a medical advisor to Let's Talk Menopause, Flo Health, Evvy, and the National Menopause Foundation, and serves on the Forbes Health Advisory Board.
Janeane N. Anderson, PhD, MPH, is a newly tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Community and Population Health in the College of Nursing at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) in Memphis, TN. Dr. Anderson’s research targets the relationship between patient-clinician communication practices and clinical and quality of life outcomes among Black adults with chronic health conditions, specifically breast cancer, HIV/AIDS, and vulvovaginal and pelvic pain.
Currently, she is the Co-PI of a $1.58 million industry-sponsored grant to investigate multilevel barriers to healthcare access and utilization among Black women with de novo advanced-stage breast cancer (Stage IIIB, IIIC, and Stage IV) and those with elevated risk for advanced breast disease in the U.S. Mid-South region. She is also a co-investigator of a study to explore patient-clinician communication and service receipt challenges among Black women diagnosed with vulvar lichen sclerosus.
Past extramural funding from the National Cancer Institute supported studies that explored patient-clinician communication, treatment adherence, and sexual health challenges among women with early-stage, hormone receptor-positive breast cancer. Funding from the Washington, DC, Center for AIDS Research supported development of a shared decision-making tool to improve uptake of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) among Black sexual minority men; the Tennessee Department of Health funding supported a training for healthcare professional students to improve communication practices for PrEP education and counseling.
Dr. Anderson is frequently invited to give lectures on patient-centered communication practices, systems of oppression, and sensitive and socially relevant topics within the U.S. healthcare system for national and international organizations.
Kudzai Dombo, MD, FACOG, MSCP, is a board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist with over 20 years of clinical experience across the full arc of women's health, from reproductive care through menopause. She trained at the University of Michigan, earned her MD from Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, and completed her OB/GYN residency at Albert Einstein Medical Center. Dr. Dombo has practiced across California and Arizona, including at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center–Burbank and Kaiser Permanente Panorama City, and has worked internationally with Doctors Without Borders and NGO partners in El Salvador, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, South Africa, and Haiti — experience that shapes her approach to menstrual health, pregnancy, and menopause across diverse healthcare contexts. Her clinical focus centers on menopause care, hormonal health, and PCOS, with particular attention to supporting Black women and midlife patients through informed, individualized care.