All things clitoris -An interview with Professor Helen O'connell

In this episode we have Professor Helen O'Connell and we are
talking all things clitoris!
Professor O'Connell was elected Vice -President of USANZ in 2021.
She was the first female Urologist in Australia and New Zealand,
completing training in Melbourne in 1993 followed by a Fellowship
in Female and Functional Urology in Houston, USA in 1994-5. Her
doctoral studies in female pelvic anatomy have achieved
international renown leading to significant conceptual changes in
both medical and lay literature. Her higher degrees were
conferred at the University of Melbourne where she became
Professor in 2013 and Head of Department of Urology and Surgery
in 2016. 
In 2014 Professor O'Connell became a Fellow of the Australian
Institute of Company Directors, completing its diploma in 2011
whilst a director for the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons
and Urological Society of Australia and New Zealand. In 2019 she
led a successful Australian Government bid to establish the
Australasian Pelvic Floor Procedure Registry to improve the
outcomes associated with mesh SUI and POP implantation and
explantation procedures. It is a collaborative effort with Monash
University Registries, the Australian Commission for Quality and
Safety in Health Care, the Therapeutic Goods Administration and
leading pelvic floor surgeons and consumers. 
She has been Principal investigator on a large number of clinical
trials for drugs and devices for overactive bladder, stress
incontinence in men and women and benign prostatic hyperplasia.
Her current clinical interests are native tissue pelvic floor
repairs, minimally invasive approaches to pelvic floor mesh
removal and benign prostate surgery. 
In 2021 Professor O'Connell was named an Officer (AO) in the
Order of Australia: For distinguished service to medical
education, and to medicine, in the field of urology, as an
academic and clinician, and to professional groups.
We asked Professor O'Connell to come and talk to us specifically
about the clitoris in all it’s glory. We learn about how medical
training used to use pornographic images of the breast to teach
anatomy. We discuss the nerves of the clitoris, what the anatomy
textbooks don't tell us... Yet! Rachel ends up telling us about
her broken clitoris! We ask about labiaplasty & FGM (female
genital mutilation) and its potential impact on vulval stretching
during birth. And how cultural sensitivity is essential to
reframing our viewpoints. And we also ask Professor O’Connell how
her work has influenced artists, sex therapists and academics in
how we now approach things such as orgasm and our deeper female
sexuality. And as Professor O’Connell quotes in the podcast "you
are not literate until you are clitarate". 


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Music by Joseph McDade


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The information shared in this podcast is for general educational
purposes only and is not intended as medical or legal advice.
Always consult with a qualified professional regarding individual
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