A Conversation with Dr. Kristina Austin and Rebecca Bloom
What women can do to make their healthcare experience better in a system that wasn’t built for us: A conversation with Dr. Kristina Austin and Rebecca Bloom, women’s health advocate and author of When Women Get Sick: An Empowering Approach for Getting the Support You Need at Books Inc. Palo Alto.
About the book: Attorney and women's health advocate Rebecca Bloom provides women fighting illness with a toolkit to navigate the complexities of the healthcare system.
Giving women the tools to navigate a healthcare system not built for them.
More than twenty-five years ago, Rebecca Bloom left her post as an employee benefits and compensation lawyer at one of the most well-known New York City law firms to pursue her passion for women's health advocacy. Drawing on her expertise in the complex rules that govern employers, insurers, and medical providers--as well as the dynamics between these stakeholders--Bloom has spent decades empowering women to confidently integrate the information and focus fully on recovery and wellness.
In When Women Get Sick Bloom offers much-needed insight to women and their supporters, diving into essential topics such as building support networks, taming the insurance beast, communicating with doctors, and staying mindful. She exposes the way the healthcare industrial complex disadvantages women, and she empowers them to find the support they need.
Using women's stories and Bloom's own experience in the trenches, this book guides readers with examples, questions, checklists, useful information, and tips. There's enough stress and fear surrounding cancer and other serious illnesses. Bloom gives women tools to make the best decisions for them in all areas of their healthcare journey.
Rebecca Bloom is a Yale College and New York University School of Law educated patient, workplace and insurance and benefits advocate and supports women around the country as they navigate their health journeys. A former workplace and benefits attorney, Rebecca’s longest and proudest affiliation is with Bay Area Cancer Connections, where she has served as a patient advocate and healthcare, insurance and workplace advisor for women fighting breast and ovarian cancer for over 26 years. Rebecca was a contributing writer and editor for Breast Cancer in the Workplace, published by the Northern California Cancer Center in the early 2000s. The book has recently been updated, expanded and reissued by the Cancer Prevention Institute of California and is now titled Working with Cancer. Rebecca’s advocacy helps women through their health journeys holistically, from the health space to the workplace to health insurance and benefits featuring mindful approaches to making it all work.
Dr. Kristina Austin, a Midwest native who attended the Medical College of Wisconsin, completed her internship at Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle and her ophthalmology residency at Stanford University. She worked in a variety of practice opportunities before settling down for over 30 years at TPMG at the GSAA facilities. During her tenure at TPMG, Dr. Austin was a long term member and eventually Chair of the Credentials and Privileges Committee and also served as Chief of the Ophthalmology Department, as well as other roles including Chair of the Elected Director Election Committee and the Regional Ophthalmology Tech Committee.
Subsequently, Dr. Austin joined Highland Hospital as an attending physician, where she discovered a passion for resident education and earned a Teaching Award in 2022. She has since expanded her teaching role to Associate Program Director, finding deep satisfaction in the development of ophthalmlogy residents.
