Menopausal hormone therapy (MHT) has been a hot topic, especially as the FDA removed menopause hormone therapy black box warning this month (November, 2025). To better understand how MHT can benefit women's health, tune into this enlightening conversation with JAAPA authors Ashley Church and Megan Biagi and JAAPA OBGYN Department Editor Alannah Zheng.

Note, our guests gave a fantastic overview of MHT - to learn more check out their article at: https://journals.lww.com/jaapa/abstract/2025/07000/menopausal_hormone_therapy__making_sense_of.3.aspx

Contributors:

Ashley Church

Credentials: MPAS, PA-C

Job Title: Physician Associate

Primary Employer: Western Sierra Medical Clinic

City, ST: Grass Valley, CA

Megan Biagi

Credentials: MPAS, PA-C, CHSE

Job Title: Associate Professor

Primary Employer: University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine

City, ST: Reno, NV

Alannah Zheng

Alannah Zheng, MSPA, PA-C, CLC

Job Title: Physician Assistant

Primary Employer: Allina Health

City, ST: St. Paul, MN

Happy PA Week! Celebrate with AAPA President Todd Pickard as he shares how PAs make connections and relationships that drive forward access, quality, innovation, advocacy, and ultimately patient care. We will learn about our professions' advances over the past year and get a sneak peak at what's to come!

In this episode, we further discuss the critical topic of malpractice prevention and risk management for PAs. Following up from the previous podcast "PAs in Legal Medicine Part 1," our expert guests provide an essential guide to protecting your practice, your patients, and your career. You'll learn actionable strategies for mindful EHR charting, effective patient communication, and proper delegation in collaborative practice. We also address the legal side of medicine, including the most common causes of malpractice lawsuits.

In this episode, we tackle the critical topic of malpractice prevention and risk management for PAs. Our expert guests provide an essential guide to protecting your practice, your patients, and your career. We break down the fundamentals, from foundational prevention tips and understanding different types of liability insurance, to navigating the PA standard of care. You'll learn actionable strategies for mindful EHR charting, effective patient communication, and proper delegation in collaborative practice. We also address the legal side of medicine, including the most common causes of malpractice suits, and how the handling of errors can impact your professional life. Tune in for a must-listen conversation that will empower every PA to practice with confidence and minimize litigation risk.

Why is advanced care planning so important, and how can PAs make a difference? Tune in to the latest JAAPA podcast episode with guest Christa Cooper to explore the innovative research she and her colleague Jessica Karl conducted on Telemedicine Advanced Care Planning led by Physician Associates. Discover how this approach enhances communication, reduces burdens on families, and ensures patient preferences are honored. Get the details and earn CME credit at cme.aapa.org!

Valproic acid is one of the most frequently prescribed mood-stabilizing agents for bipolar disorder, and in some regions of the world, it now competes with lithium as the preferred treatment of choice for bipolar maintenance. There may soon be restrictions on the use of valproic acid, however, because of the risk in neural tube defects and major congenital malformations in children born to mothers and fathers who take it.

In this podcast, Dr. Samuel Dotson, from the Northeast Georgia Health System in Gainesville, Georgia, and Emory University in Atlanta, and Dr. Andrew Nierenberg, from the Dauten Family Center for Bipolar Treatment Innovation at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, discuss the current state of research regarding the benefits and risks of valproic acid in comparison to lithium use. They also discuss the importance of informing patients about their options, noting that lithium use has sometimes been perceived as riskier than it is. Dr. Dotson and Dr. Nierenberg are the authors of a Guest Editorial titled “Growing Concerns Over Valproate Teratogenicity Present an Opportunity for Lithium” in the March-April 2025 issue of The Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology.

Dr. Donald C. Goff, Marvin Stern professor of psychiatry at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, gives an overview of a new combination drug recently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of schizophrenia. It will be marketed as Cobenfy, and its component active ingredients are xanomeline and trospium chloride, representing the first non-dopaminergic antipsychotic approved by the FDA. Dr. Goff briefly explores the decades of pharmaceutical treatment of schizophrenia and lays out the steps toward developing the new combination drug. He offers details on next steps, treatment, more extensive trials of the new drug, related approaches, and refers listeners to his editorial for prescribing information.

His guest editorial, “At Last, a Nondopaminergic Agent for the Treatment of Schizophrenia: The Combination of Xanomeline and Trospium (Cobenfy),” is published in the March-April 2025 issue of The Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology.

"Designer benzodiazepines" are lab-created chemical derivatives of prescription benzodiazepines. They have not been approved for medical use and there is limited information on their safety and toxicity. More potent than their prescription counterparts, this subset of novel psychoactive substances have been growing in popularity in recent years and pose the potential for dangerous levels of intoxication.

In this podcast, Dr. Sahil Munjal, program director of the Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist psychiatry residency program, leads a discussion of the article “Clinical Management of Designer Benzodiazepine Intoxication: A Systematic Review," with his coauthors Dr. Gregory Noe, Katelyn Li, and Nicholas McDuffee. They provide an overview of designer benzodiazepines in comparison to prescription benzodiazepines and describe the findings from their review of 35 case reports. They discuss clinical presentations of designer benzodiazepine intoxication, common approaches to clinical management, and key takeaways from their review of the literature. Their article appears in the March-April 2025 issue of The Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology.

Recently, a team of researchers at the NCCPA examined the impact of educational debt on PA specialty selection - tune in as we discuss their work as recently published in JAAPA. We know that the decision to specialize is nuanced, involving a PA's individual goals, experiences in PA school, job availability for each physical location, compensation, and levels of debt accrued in training. Listen as Andrez Kozikowski, Alicia Quella, and Mirela Bruza-Augatis discuss this important topic.