Dr. Kristina Petrocco-Napuli
SPOTLIGHT
Helping Women Achieve the Health they Deserve.
Nina Kult
"78% percent of women in the U.S. make the household decision on health care. Are we helpingthem make the Fight choice.
Kristina Petrocco-Napuli, DC, MS, FICC, FACC, can still remember working as a patient care technician on the women’s surgical floor for a hospital shortly after graduating from college. As she watched woman after woman coming in for repeat procedures to address chronic pelvic pain, Dr. Petrocco-Napuli thought to herself, “There has got to be a better way to help women.”
“That’s what ultimately started my passion for focusing on women’s health and looking at other treatment modalities,” she said, “when we look at the true physiological journey of females, we can better understand and address their health conditions.”
Today, Dr. Petrocco-Napuli is an advocate for changing the way society looks at the health care of women and special populations, traveling extensively to educate fellow practitioners while she teaches future doctors of chiropractic at Logan University in Chesterfield, Missouri.
Female pain, she said, is multifactorial, and women are more likely to experience more chronic pain, widespread pain, and pelvic pain.
“Historically, women’s health has been associated with pediatrics or pregnancy,” she said. “We know not every female chooses that journey, yet we have a profession that focuses solely on women’s health as a part of that. There is a huge void in health care that addresses the pain stemming from menstrual cycles, menopausal changes, hormonal changes, or migraines, among others.”
Dr. Petrocco-Napuli believes that her calling is to educate females to advocate for the care they need and deserve, as well as advocating for an integrated and collaborative model of health care that can tackle the challenges of women.
During the 2018 Spring Symposium at Logan University, Dr. Petrocco-Napuli pushed chiropractors to consider being an active proponent for women’s health. “Are you asking female patients about dysmenorrhea, age of their first menstrual period, and urinary incontinence? Pelvic floor dysfunction can occur in girls as early as 15,” she said. “If you’re not asking these questions, you’re missing an opportunity to help.”
She also talked about a shift occurring in women’s health, wherein young girls are aging faster and entering puberty as early as eight years old. “What is that doing for bone building, reproduction, polycystic ovarian syndrome, and infertility? Are we helping to prepare them for the future?”
These are the women’s health issues that Dr. PetroccoNapuli believes chiropractors should be owning to help move the profession forward, and as president of the American Chiropractic Association’s new Council on Women’s Health, she is hoping to reach a broader audience as a catalyst for change.
“My vision for the Women’s Health Council is to provide an opportunity to educate practitioners with much more information and focus on women’s health,” she said. “All around, we aim to increase education, care, and awareness of conditions that impact the female patient population.”
In addition to disseminating more information about women’s health, the council hopes to profess effective messages for increased awareness, support research activity in the field of women’s health and chiropractic, and sponsor continuing education and postdoctoral opportunities.
The council is currently recruiting members and will be holding their inaugural Women’s Health Symposium at Logan on September 28 - 29, 2019. The event will focus on the health and wellness of females, looking at chiropractors and other healthcare professionals who can help women understand their health and live without pain.
“Seventy-eight percent of women in the U. S. make the household decision on health care. Are we helping them with this to make the right choice?” Dr. Petrocco-Napuli asked. “We are not speaking loud enough and educating like we need to be—our patients need us. We need to integrate, talk, advocate, and work together, using all the tools available.”
Dr. Petrocco-Napuli graduated from the University of Arizona with her degree in Physiological Sciences and later with her Chiropractic degree from New York Chiropractic College. Following graduation from Chiropractic College, she opened a practice in New York and shortly after began her PostDoctoral Fellowship in Technique at New York Chiropractic College. During this time, she also achieved a Master's degree in Instructional Design, Development and Evaluation from Syracuse University. She currently serves as a professor for Logan University and an adjunct faculty of New York Chiropractic College in the MSHAPI program, which she assisted in co-designing.
