"Own It": Finding Your Voice, Dr. Amama Sadiq, A Women's Health Leader, Shares Her Dynamic Life Story
“I knew that I had a voice, and though it didn’t fit with the masses, it helped others that needed it. I found my way into women’s health, particularly sexual health, an often taboo subject. A subject that no one particularly from my background wants to talk about” Today’s woman dreamer, Dr. Amama Sadiq, is an award-winning physician who has led an exciting career in women’s health, and was a previous speaker at the renowned Massachusetts Women’s Conference. With a life-long passion of making an impact and thinking outside the box of practicing traditional medicine, Amama shares her dynamic and powerful story as a pioneer in women’s health. She writes, It’s not about SEX! It’s about having passion in everything you do” Enjoy her story below!
Tell us your story. What led you on your exciting career path in the healthcare industry?
Born and brought up in Dubai, an emirate of the U.A.E, I never really knew what it was like to not be an “outsider”. My parents were south Asian immigrants and despite it being my “home” in fact the only home I knew of, I was painfully aware that I was and will always be an expatriate in Dubai. My mother and father worked hard as young professionals bringing us up in the rapidly expanding metropolis and although we thrived on the buzz and excitement, somehow miraculously we also held onto to our culture and traditions. I was always passionate about public speaking and never let an opportunity go by to be on stage, using my voice to connect with and inspire an audience. Eventually, I won an award for a full scholarship to go to Oxford school of drama for a summer where I got formal training to further advance my presentation skills.
Nevertheless, as with all ‘desis’ my parents dream of having their daughter be a doctor soon became my dream, and theatre took a back seat. Funny how that happens! I ended up moving to Pakistan (my parent’s birth home) to complete my medical degree. I went to Aga Khan University (AKU) which has international acclaim however, most of the students are actually “local” i.e., from Pakistan or at the very least have very close family living in Pakistan. This was my second foray into being an outsider “the girl from Dooobai” in Pakistan trying to fit in. Pakistan is often seen as a country with a small Birkin-bag sporting elite (not me), a poverty-ridden mass (also not me) and little in between (me?). Needless to say, by final year of medical school, I was yearning to find my passion again. I had been approached while acting in a self- directed play by George Bernard Shaw to host a tv show on Geo TV called Clinic Online. A health show where viewers could call in and get advice from an allopathic doctor, a homeopathic doctor and a faith healer and we would untangle important issues and connections between physical, mental, and spiritual health. I would go to the studio on a Saturday night, record shows for 24 hours and come back to my dorm to catch a few hours of sleep before class Monday morning. This side gig soon became my real-world education, my outlet, my way of connecting and helping the Pakistan that lived outside the bubble of AKU.
Soon, it came time for residency, and I moved to London, UK which became home for my early adult life. I worked as some would call it as a micro physician seeing individual patients but somehow knew I needed to hit a broader scale if I wanted to make an impact. My opportunity came in the form of a public health degree at Harvard University and so I moved to Boston to study health policy and management while paying the bills with a clinical research fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. The taste of broader public health decisions at school coupled with cutting edge pharmaceutical funded research at work paved the way for me to think outside the traditional box of “practicing medicine” and I stayed in Boston where I am settled today in my current home.
What is a challenge of being a doctor focused on women’s health & women’s sexual health?
By this time, I knew that I had a voice, and though it didn’t fit with the masses, it helped others that needed it. I found my way into women’s health, particularly sexual health an often taboo subject. A subject that no one particularly from my background wants to talk about and between the women that suffer and the health care providers like myself who aren’t trained to ask, someone had to give it a voice. Sure being the doctor for women’s sexual health made me a misfit at our “desi “parties but at this age fitting in seemed over rated. So, I took the stage once again and joined AMAG to lead the launch of a novel therapy to help women suffering from low sexual desire and associated distress. A disease that is under recognized for women and yet somehow over recognized for men. As a young brown woman in a leadership position, I knew I had one shot at goal. The day our therapy was approved by the FDA, I came home late at night and found both my young daughters in bed asleep. I sobbed next to them silently, tears of joy. It had been 18 months of sheer perseverance, dedication, red eye flights, nonstop presentations to get there and I had missed my two year old’s many “firsts”. But I could now lay next to them and tell them that finally Mommy and her team had changed history for young women so that my girls could do the same. After the launch of the new therapy, I had letters from patients thanking us for allowing them to speak to their husbands, their significant others, their HCPs with confidence about a real issue and providing them with an option to “save” their relationships, their marriage, their self-image etc.
As a speaker at the Massachusetts conference for women in 2019, what are your thoughts on encouraging women to share their stories and empower stories?
I was then invited to the Mass Conference for women in 2019 to give a talk on “"Just Ask" Promoting open conversations about sexual health”. This was really an honor for me to follow speakers such as Malala Yousufzai and Megan Rapinoe, who said “we are all more impactful than we think”. And I took those words back with me to share with my team at AMAG Pharmaceuticals. Every day, we have the power to initiate a small yet meaningful change, to help other women move forward and I aim to participate in all those activities big or small. I am a member of the AMAG women’s network where we have unfiltered conversations about work, family, relationships - anything and everything that needs a tribe to help a woman succeed. I remind myself, my daughters, and other women around me every day to stop trying to fit in and just belong. It takes many baby steps, but we can get there eventually.
As I said at the beginning, I know I am uncomfortable with being comfortable in one place and so I am moving on to work on another mission soon and help a different group that needs a voice, perhaps my voice, but to find out more details, you may have to ask me again next year 😊. Till then let’s make ‘standing out’ from the crowd our legacy.
Thank you to the Women who Win for giving me the opportunity to share my own personal story.