Jennifer Gunter is a Canadian-American gynecologist, a New York Times columnist covering women's health, an author, and a specialist in chronic pain medicine and vulvovaginal disorders.
Early life and education Gunter was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. A positive experience at the hospital when she was eleven and had a skateboard accident motivated her to decide on a career in health care. Declining sedation, she watched the hospital staff perform an angiogram on her ruptured spleen as they explained the procedure to her. From 1984 to 1986, Gunter studied at the University of Winnipeg until being accepted into medical school in 1986. In 1990, Gunter graduated from the University of Manitoba College of Medicine. From 1990 to 1995, she completed obstetrics and gynecology training at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. In 1995, Gunter moved to the United States for a fellowship in infectious diseases and women's health at the University of Kansas Medical Center, where she also developed an interest in pain management.
Career
Doctor From 1996 to 2001, Gunter worked at the University of Kansas Medical Center for an additional five years after the one-year fellowship ended. In 2001, Gunter worked as a lecturer at the University of Colorado Hospital in Denver, Colorado. During this time, the loss of one of Gunter's sons in a triplet pregnancy she described as traumatic made her decide to shift her work away from the field of obstetrics. Instead she focused on gynecology, specializing in vaginal and vulval conditions. Gunter has practiced medicine since 1996. Gunter works as an OB/GYN and a pain medicine physician. Her approach is based on evidence-based medicine integrated with a focus on empathy and the patient experience, which Gunter said she learned from the University of Western Ontario and the adjacency to McMaster University Medical School, which is a center of evidence-based medicine. Since 2006, she has been at The Permanente Medical Group of Kaiser Permanente in Northern California. At Kaiser, Gunter manages a health clinic for women in the Chronic Pelvic Pain & Vulvo-Vaginal Disorders division.
Author In 2004, Gunter delivered triplets prematurely. One was born at 22 weeks and did not survive. The other two were born at 26 weeks. The lack of publicly available, medically sound information about the particular needs of premature babies motivated her to write a book, The Preemie Primer: A Complete Guide for Parents of Premature Babies — from Birth through the Toddler Years and Beyond. Since 2011, Gunter has written a blog that has reached 15 million views and has generated controversies in the mainstream media. Gunter has been critical of health claims made by celebrities and the careless way that media outlets report on matters such as reproductive health and vaccination. She advocates for more responsible health coverage by the news media, less attention to health advice by celebrities, and for doctors to communicate better with their patients. In June 2019, The Lancet published an opinion piece by Gunter calling for "a better medical internet" by having more medical experts involved in disseminating adequate medical information to the public. "It is simply not acceptable to me that quality research that can save lives and reduce suffering could be undone by a medical conspiracy theorist or a celebrity looking to sell supplements." In 2019 to 2020, Gunter wrote two columns on women's health at The New York Times: a monthly column called "The Cycle" and a weekly column called "You Asked". In 2021, Gunter started a newsletter, The Vajenda, focused on providing medical information to women — and combatting medical misinformation. Gunter is known by the nickname "Twitter's Resident Gynecologist" and has used X (formerly Twitter) to share information about pain management and debunk myths about women's health. As of 2024, her X account reaches over 360,000 followers. Her book The Menopause Manifesto debuted at number 4 on The New York Times best seller list for "Advice, How-To & Miscellaneous" on June 6, 2021.
The Vagina Bible In 2019 Gunter's second book, The Vagina Bible, was published. The book presents medical information about female reproductive anatomy and corrects common myths. Gunter stated that she wrote the book to counter what she considers a large amount of dangerous false information on the web about female health. The book includes a section focusing on trans men and women. The title reached No. 1 on the list of Canadian nonfiction bestsellers, according to the Retail Council of Canada. During promotion of the book, there was controversy when the publisher's Twitter advertisements were blocked for use of inappropriate language (presumably the word vagina). The ads were only allowed to run after a large online conversation developed.
Popular culture As a doctor, Gunter has spoken out on a variety of topics affecting women's health, including abortion, the HPV vaccine, and the use of fetal tissue in research. Gunter aims to correct misconceptions about women's health through her books, newspaper column and online discussions. In 2021 to 2023, Gunter hosted a TED Audio Collective podcast called Body Stuff with Dr. Jen Gunter, which aimed to combat common health myths. In 2015, Gunter's blog post critical of a Toronto Star article that mischaracterized the safety of Gardasil, a HPV vaccine, resulted in an apology by Toronto Star. There was additional discussion and scrutiny over the coverage of vaccine safety in the mainstream press.
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