Our guest on What A Woman Podcast today is Dr. Monica Peres, a GP based in Cork and an online sensation with over 110k followers on Instagram as she posts short, engaging reels on health, especially for women. We talk about:

- Growing up in Nigeria and the trauma of losing her mum as a teenager

- What it was like to move to Ireland age 15 to live with her father & siblings

- Being the only black Irish girl when studying Medicine at Trinity

- For our health, why monthly self-checks & knowing your normal is so important

- Signs of breast cancer we might not be aware of

- Why Ireland has such high rates of skin cancer

- Lifestyle changes to improve health

- The right time to consider taking HRT

- Why Dr. Monica loves being a GP

Dr. Monica is also currently running as a local election candidate for the Green party in the Carrigaline area with policies focused on improving access to health services and local amenities, as she's passionate about helping others and supporting her community.

Follow Dr.Monica

@blondieperes

Dr Katriona O' Sullivan is an academic and best-selling author of 'Poor' which is the story of her life growing up in extreme poverty as the child of two heroin addicts and how she survived abuse, neglect and became pregnant and homeless at fifteen before finding an access course in her twenties at Trinity College that changed her life.

We talk about:

- The gruesome reality of poverty, growing up witnessing her parents injecting and overdosing and never knowing when the next meal was coming and never celebrating Christmas

- Suffering abuse when her father went to prison and her mother was forced into prostitution

- Becoming pregnant and homeless at fifteen and the loneliness of living in a hostel with her son without support

- How the kindness of people, especially some teachers can be transformative to children in her situation

- How a chance meeting with a friend led her to the access course at Trinity College that changed her life

- Getting a First Class degree and being presented her Doctorate by Mary Robinson, the first female president of Ireland

- Why we all need to use what privilege we have to help others in society

Dr. Katriona O'Sullivan is an extraordinary woman but says herself, she is an anomaly and so many others in her situation cannot break the cycle of poverty which is why she has written her story to show that it's crucial to have more services in place to support people in similar situations.

Dr. Katriona O'Sullivan is a married mother of three and her family and close relationships are her definition of success after what she missed out on when she was young. She has also been hugely successful in her career as a Psychologist and Senior Lecturer at Maynooth University and she also devotes her time to promoting and creating policies around access to education. Dr. Katriona was also a research fellow of Trinity College and Oxford and she has spoken at the UN to tell her story.

Everyone should read her book - it is an amazing read!

Follow Dr. Katriona

@katriona_osullivan

Our guest this week is Audrey Dore Geraghty who has bravely spoken out about her family's daily struggle to get the right care, respite and medication for her nine year-old son who has Autism and several mental health conditions which mean his care needs are significant and becoming unmanageable at home. We talk about:

- When her son was first diagnosed and how his behaviour has escalated and become more violent

- Why Audrey was forced to go to Spain for her son's treatment

- How she has been failed by the country's leaders and Camhs, the Children & Adolescent Mental Health Service in Ireland and other health services

- Why having a broad definition of Autism Spectrum Disorder can be problematic

- The impact of managing her son's care on her other children and her marriage

- Audrey's hopes and fears for her son's future

Audrey and her husband are based in county Wexford and have two other children aged seven and nearly one. They are both dentists by profession and Audrey heads up a Cosmetic and Orthodontic department on a part-time basis when she is not caring for her son, as she and her husband share the care between them. We really admire Audrey's strength and fight in what is an unbearably hard situation for her and many families in a similar situation and we hope that by sharing these experiences, there will be change.

Follow Audrey:

@audz83dg