Musings

Erectile Difficulty Medication

In this episode of the Sexually Speaking podcast, Dr Katz presents Part 2 of a discussion about erections. This time the focus is on the oral medications used to treat erectile difficulties.

Erections and Heart Health

In this part one of two podcasts about the role of erections in male sexuality, Dr Katz talks about the connection between the heart and the penis - not in a romantic way...

Communication in your sex life

In this episode, Dr Katz talks about the importance of communication in your sex life, and suggests some strategies for effective conversations

Understanding Lubricants

In this edition of Sexually Speaking, Dr Katz gives you the why and how on lubricants. This is essential information for women (and men!) of all ages.

Loss of Desire

In this new format, Dr Anne Katz talks about a question that she is asked very frequently by women of all ages - where did my desire go?

Sexually Speaking Episode 11

In this episode of Sexually Speaking, Dr. Anne Katz talks to Dr. Elisabeth Gordon about the lack of sexuality education for health care providers. Their conversation concludes with valuable advice about how to talk to your health care provider about sexual issues.

Sexually Speaking Episode 10

In episode 10 of Sexually Speaking, Dr. Anne Katz talks to Linda Weiner, author and expert in teaching the technique of sensate focus exercises. Developed by Masters and Johnson, sensate focus exercises have helped tens of thousands of couples overcome a broad range...

Sexually Speaking Episode 9

In this episode of Sexually Speaking, Dr. Anne Katz talks to Dr. Stephanie Buehler, a psychologist and sex therapist about sexuality during pregnancy and after childbirth. This is a time of upheaval in most couples' lives, even though it is usually a joyous time, and...

Sexually Speaking Episode 8

In this episode of Sexually Speaking, Dr Katz talks to Dr. Don S. Dizon, a medical oncologist about the challenges talking about changes in sexuality after cancer treatment - for both cancer care providers as well as patients. But this episode has importance not just...

Sexually Speaking Episode 7: Magnificent Sex

In this episode of Sexually Speaking, Dr Anne Katz interviews Peggy Kleinplatz the author of a book on magnificent sex. You will learn about true intimacy and deep empathy, two of the keys to sex that is truly magnificent.

Sexually Speaking Podcast Episode 6

In this episode, Dr Katz talks to Dr Barry McCarthy about male sexuality and the myths associated with it. Dr McCarthy presents a contemporary model of male sexuality that encompasses intimacy and eroticism - and is likely to change your mind about everything related...

Attending an Appointment Alone in the Time of COVID

The young woman’s voice shook as she introduced herself to me on the phone. I had received a referral to see her from one of the nurses after she disclosed that she was having problems in her relationship. Over the course of an hour, Jamie* told me the story of her...

What Exactly Is Sexual Performance?

perform verb per·​form | \ pər-ˈfȯrm  , pə- \ performed; performing; performs Definition of perform 3a: to do in a formal manner or according to prescribed ritual b: to give a rendition of : PRESENT intransitive verb 1: to carry out an action or pattern of...

Sexually Speaking Podcast Episode 5

In this episode of Sexually Speaking, Dr Anne Katz talks to Dr Laurie Mintz, author of 'Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters and How to Get It'. Learn about the pleasure gap and how to close it, the reason why so many women fake orgasms (not a good idea),...

Sexually Speaking Podcast Episode 4

In this episode of Sexually Speaking, Dr. Katz talks to Dr. Bill Diehl-Jones about sex hormones. What are they and what do they do? And what happens when they decline and is there anything that can be done about that? You'll learn something that you did not know - Dr....

Sexually Speaking Podcast Episode 3

In episode 3 of Sexually Speaking, Dr. Anne Katz spoke with physiotherapist Dr. Kelli Berzuk about the pelvic floor muscle, why it's so important and how it can help men and women with a variety of physical problems. Subscribe to the Podcast on iTunes | Subscribe to...

Mourning the Loss of Sexual Function

I wasn’t sure what his response would be to my suggestion, but I thought it was worth talking about. I have had numerous conversations with this man over the past 2 years. The first time I met him was about 2 weeks after his diagnosis of prostate cancer. He came to...

Sexually Speaking Podcast Episode 2

In episode two of Sexually Speaking with Dr. Anne Katz, Anne spoke with Dr. Elizabeth Grill from the Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility in New York City about how infertility affects couples' sexuality. Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes

Sexually Speaking Podcast Episode 1

In the first episode of Sexually Speaking with Dr. Anne Katz, Anne spoke with Dr. Lori Brotto, author of Better Sex Through Mindfulness about how mindfulness effects the sexual experience

Unanticipated Consequences of COVID-19

Many health care facilities are enacting policies during this time of COVID-19 that restrict the number of people attending appointments in person. Family care providers are asked to wait outside or to drop off the patient for their appointment and come back to pick...

Secrets Hurt Even When Kept to Protect Others

We all have secrets. There are things that we don’t share with anyone, not our partner and especially not our children. We hold them close and hide them from the light of day or the dark of night. They are ours to keep because if let out, they can destroy things. Such...

Assumptions and Misunderstandings Lead to Relationship Distress

“Assumptions are the mother of f@#$-ups!” My patient, a 60-something woman, made this declaration towards the end of a counselling session when we were trying to discover why she and her partner of more than 30 years were struggling to communicate. I laughed out loud...

Touch in the Time of COVID-19

Over the past 18 years, I have travelled far and wide, lecturing to oncology care providers as well as survivors and their caregivers. I love the travel, despite the hassles of airports and flight delays. I really do love sitting in my seat on the plane, feeling that...

Love in the Time of a Pandemic

I have been seeing this couple for a while. They both have a history of cancer; she was treated for breast cancer 2 years ago and he had testicular cancer in his 20s. They are now in their early 50s with a 17-year-old son who is in his final year of high school. She...

Voice to Voice: Counselling in the Time of COVID-19

I have been seeing a couple regularly for 3 months. The man was diagnosed with lung cancer when the cancer was at a very early stage; today, he is well with no evidence of disease. He has been having some sexual problems that are causing conflict in his relationship...

Love Lessons Learned From Strangers in the Elevator

What I saw in the crowded elevator is usually not that remarkable: a young couple standing close to each other, their eyes locked. She raised her right hand slowly and stroked his cheek, whispering “Oh, sweetheart.” I could not see his response as his back was to me,...

What Shall We Call It? No Evidence of Disease Rather Than Cure?

I see men for their survivorship transition visit after completing radiation therapy for prostate cancer. I have written about this before; I find these appointments enjoyable and usually less challenging as they do not require complex discussions. Some of these...

When a Patient Disappears, a Health Care Provider Is Left Wondering

I first met JB* when the receptionist at the clinic called to tell me that a patient was asking to see me. His name did not ring a bell and on a quick review of my patient schedule for the week, his name did not appear. I went to the waiting room to see if I at least...

“Nothing Can Be Done”: A Single Sentence That Took Away Hope

Mr. G* was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer 2 years ago and has been on a succession of medications to control a progressive cancer. His PSA never nadired after surgery and adjuvant radiation only increased his urinary problems. Androgen deprivation therapy...

Acting Out in the Face of a New Diagnosis

As we all know—vicariously, fortunately, for most of us—a diagnosis of cancer changes everything. The false sense of certainty of how life will play out is gone in an instant when the words “you have cancer” are spoken. A person becomes a patient in that moment and...

Diminishment

The patient was well over 6 feet tall and looked like he had recently lost weight. When he took off his winter coat and hung it over the back of the chair, I could see his scapulae like wings under his sweater. He folded himself into the chair and carefully crossed...

Ringing the Bell: What Does It Signal for Our Patients?

It’s become a common practice in oncology institutions across North America: A patient completes their prescribed course of treatment and they ring a bell. Usually it’s a large bell, like one that used to be rung in schools signaling the end of recess. Or it’s a...

Dating After Cancer: Who Gives Permission to a Parent?

Going through the process of diagnosis, treatment decision making, and often lengthy treatment without a partner can be challenging. While children, friends, and other family members are supportive, for the single individual, there is no one to talk to in the middle...

Wasting Precious Time – Theirs and Ours

I recently attended a lunchtime session on the Choosing Wisely initiative. This public and professional awareness endeavor attempts to educate the public and health care providers about procedures that do not benefit patients and that may ultimately cause harm. It was...

Men Need to Talk About Their Feelings

It usually starts with a phone call: “Doc, can I come and talk to you about something?” The “something” might be erectile difficulties or other side effect(s) from prostate cancer treatment. It might be confusion or indecision about what treatment to agree to. I...

Lessons Learned From the “Very Old” Patients

I have never seen myself as someone who cares for older patients. Most of my clinical career has focused on caring for young gay men in the early days of the HIV/AIDS crisis or high-risk pregnant women. Then I moved into a position in oncology and the fact that most...

When a Chaotic Life Complicates Cancer Care

Sarah* is a new patient, referred to me because she is having difficulty deciding on treatment for breast cancer. I don’t know much else about her and a quick review of her electronic medical record tells me that she is 48 years old and has hormone-positive disease in...

How Past Abuse and Trauma Impact Cancer Treatment

I am in the privileged and humbling position of hearing the stories of patients’ pasts. Sometimes the stories are so horrendous that it takes all my energy to stop myself from crying as they recount the brutality of their experiences. I have heard harrowing...

The Fallout From Loss of Testosterone and the Impact on the Partner

I see these couples quite often: the man has been prescribed androgen deprivation therapy and his partner is distressed. He no longer has erections, although for some that had been a problem for years. But even then, they tell me, he at least tried occasionally. Now...

When Fear of Recurrence Becomes Overwhelming

JP* is a 65-year-old patient of mine who opted for a radical prostatectomy when he was diagnosed with low-risk, low-volume prostate cancer 5 years ago. He was extremely distressed after learning of the diagnosis and made repeated phone calls and multiple visits in the...

Care Providers Care When Patients Are Unreachable

I had never met the man but from a brief reading of the notes in his medical record, I knew that this was not going to be easy. Thirty years old with stage III kidney cancer, the notes showed a long history of missed appointments and late arrivals. I had been asked to...

Chemotherapy and Sex: Helping Our Patients Assess Risk

Sheila* is a vibrant woman in her late 50s with stage II gastric cancer. She is slight but energetic; her chart states that she has lost a considerable amount of weight since her diagnosis and treatment. She’s had chemotherapy and surgery and is now on continuous...

No Silver Lining: Recalling the Unhappy Couples I Counsel

The couples I see for counseling are not always perfect, not that any couples ever are. But when cancer enters the relationship, for some couples, things get ugly and get ugly fast. I believe that we like to think that cancer makes people “better”; that people rise to...

What’s Good for the Patient Is Not Always What They Want

One of the nurses knocked on my door on a quiet Monday morning. “Hey, can you see this patient? I guess it’s not urgent but he’s here now and I think what the doctor told him just threw him for a loop.” Of course I had time. In my role as clinical nurse specialist in...

Couples After Cancer: Growth for Some, Loss for Others

Many of the couples that I see in my practice grow closer after the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. I describe it as being forged by the searing flames of this still dreaded disease. First comes the terror of the diagnosis and the fear of losing one’s love; I see...

Sex After Cancer: Body, Mind, Heart

Ten years ago, I first met this patient, newly diagnosed with intermediate-risk prostate cancer. As I walked into the examination room I was struck by the juxtaposition of his wife, crumpled in a chair and weeping silently, with the patient himself, pacing the...

When a Colleague Becomes a Patient, It’s Personal

I was sitting in a meeting, listening and participating, but at the same time keeping an eye on my email. I always do this, sometimes to my peril, as email is distracting and more than once I have been called on to say something and I have no clue where the discussion...

Getting Over Oneself

In my work at a busy prostate cancer clinic, I discuss all available treatment options with men who are experiencing erectile problems after surgery or radiation therapy. The discussion proceeds in an orderly fashion, with the oral agents described first, then the...

Contagion

Every month or two I see a patient, usually a man with prostate cancer, who is concerned that if he has intercourse with his spouse, he will give her cancer. The question is asked with sincerity and I can see the worry in the man’s eyes. His spouse is often equally...

Small Things Make a BIG Difference

I run a dilator program for women with rectal or anal cancer where I educate patients about the need for and correct use of vaginal dilators to mitigate the effects of radiation on the vaginal wall. Many women don’t understand the need for dilators after radiation for...

Who’s the Patient? Advocacy vs. Interference

When is an advocate not an advocate? When should a spouse step back and let the husband make a treatment decision? When should an adult child of a man with prostate cancer let their father decide what is best for him? These are questions that, fortunately, I don’t...

A Patient’s Response to Assessment of Suicidality

We have all seen patients whose distress is off the charts, or off the Distress Thermometer (NCCN). They sit in our offices, dazed and seemingly so depressed that we ask the mandatory question: “Are you thinking of hurting yourself?” Some patients just shake their...

Tears in the heart

My patient mix comes in waves—some months it is mostly women with breast cancer struggling with adjuvant endocrine therapy or men in the aftermath of surgery for prostate cancer. These past two months, it has been young adults, and my heart has taken a beating. There...

Supportive care

I see patients in three kinds of supportive scenarios. There are those who come to their visits with me by themselves. I understand why they come alone to address their sexual problems; they think that the problem is theirs to fix and often think it has nothing to do...

Difficult patients

We all have our fair share of so-called “difficult” patients. And, I would suggest that how we define “difficult” is as diverse as we are as health care providers and as individuals. Some patients come to us with that reputation—perhaps, a vague descriptor in a...

A Patient’s Secondary Question Leads to an Unexpected Success

The patient was a young looking 74-year-old woman, accompanied by her husband. She was not exactly sure why she was seeing me and nodded as I explained that I see all women with anal or rectal cancer who are being treated with radiation therapy. I explained that we...

Should We Give Patients Our Cell Phone Number?

I recently attended the David Stroud Adolescent and Young Adult [AYA] Symposium at Keck Medicine of University of Southern California. It was a very interesting symposium with experts in adolescent and young adult cancer presenting on many different topics important...

A cry for help

I received an email this week and this is all it said: “I’m 51 years old and I was diagnosed with breast cancer 8 years ago, I love my husband very much I have no sex drive I do not want to be touched by him I hate sex it hurts is not comfortable it's not enjoyable, I...

Real men DO cry

We’ve come a long way from the 1940s and 1950s when men didn’t cry—not when they stubbed a toe or came back from the war, and certainly not in front of strangers. In the last 20-plus years we have seen a loosening up of the "stiff upper lip" prescription and we now...

How we live before we die

A friend of mine died after outliving her prognosis for more than a year. I was with her at almost all her appointments with various oncologists. She had asked me to be the notetaker for these appointments so that she could focus on the discussion as it happened and...

Fertility Preservation and Undisclosed Costs

I have fertility on my mind—and it’s definitely not personal. And it’s really fertility preservation that has me thinking. I recently completed the manuscript of my 10th book—a text for oncology care providers about the provision of psychosocial care to young adults...

How soon is soon enough?

Hearing the words “you have cancer” changes everything. In my role as Clinical Nurse Specialist in a busy prostate clinic, I see the effects of these three words on men and their families every day. The shock and disbelief, the fear and confusion as most men feel...

The pharmacist said “No”.

It’s not often that I find myself speechless. I have heard all sorts of stories in my office—as a sexuality counselor, I am often humbled by the trust that people place in me and how much they disclose about their private lives. But one conversation I had with a...

Do oncology care providers talk to women about sexuality?

A recent study published in the journal Supportive Care in Cancer suggest that yes, they do - so things are improving from just a few years ago when most weren't. But let me tell you more.. In this study, oncologists and nurses working with women with gynecologic...

More success!

I received official word late yesterday that my book for and about young adults with cancer has won a prestigious award from the American Journal of Nursing. The award is for the Consumer Health book of the year (2014) and I could not be more proud. This is an award...

Soon to be available in paperback

While searching Amazon for a listing of my books recently it came to my attention that my book for the partners of men with prostate cancer will soon be available in paperback. It's available on pre-order for now. This is a good thing - mostly because it means that it...

Publishing awards for some of my books

So proud that two of my books have received awards this year- Prostate Cancer and the Man You Love (Rowman and Littlefield) will receive the SSTAR Consumer Book award in Boston in early 2015 This Should Not Be Happening: Young Adults with Cancer (Hygeia Media)...

The waiting….

My book for and about young adults with cancer is due out any day now... I just don't know which day! It's both frustrating and exciting - I really would like to know when to expect the hard copy and yet once I have it in my hands, the anticipation will be over....

Latest book done

I handed my latest book in on its due date - May 31, 2013. It was a really interesting book to write and has inspired me to be more involved clinically with fertility preservation counselling at work. But that's another story. For now, I wait anxiously to hear that...

Almost done

My soon-to-be-newest book is almost done - just two or three chapters left to write and (hopefully) my co-author is done at the same time and - away she will go! this one is for and about young adults with cancer and it has been a most interesting and inspiring...

New book germinating

Having finished writing my last book (Prostate Cancer and the Man You Love) in May of 2012 I wondered how long it would be before another one got started. And here I sit on a cold morning in January, writing the first chapter of my next book. Well, really I should say...

New article on breast cancer survivors

I was recently interviewed for an article about the quality of life issues for women with breast cancer. The lengthy article published across Canada deals with the many issues facing women with breast cancer, including sexuality and body image. There are also...

Review of my latest book

Prostate cancer doesn’t just affect the patient, but also his spouse or partner, asserts Anne Katz, RN, PhD, in Prostate Cancer and the Man You Love. A clinical nurse specialist at Canada’s Manitoba Prostate Centre and editor of the Oncology Nursing Society’s...

Now available – in Chinese!

How amazing - two of my books (Man Cancer Sex at left and Woman Cancer Sex) have been published in Chinese! Peking University Medical Press approached my publisher (the amazing Hygeia Media) and bought the rights to have the books translated and then published them....

ETA of new book….

My new book will be out at the end of July, 2012.... this weekend I will have the (dubious) pleasure of indexing it. This is no small feat, especially for someone who is not at all detail oriented. I have to read every single word and then create the index single...

New book!

Hang onto your hats, people - it's not quite here but at the end of the summer it will be. My latest book - PROSTATE CANCER AND THE MAN YOU LOVE: SUPPORTING AND CARING FOR YOUR PARTNER. Yes, it's a long title but it says it like it is - this book covers everything...

A new adventure begins…

After 8 amazing years as editor of Nursing for Women's Health, my tenure is at an end. But bitter sweet endings leave room for new beginnings and I am happy and proud and generally overwhelmed to announce that I have been appointed as editor of Oncology Nursing Forum,...