(soft bright music) - [Pamela] Tonight.

Why have so many women been suffering quietly?

- They've been miserable for so long, for no good reason.

- [Pamela] And we meet the winter birds of Rhode Island.

- [Don] So there's, uh, harlequin ducks.

Let's see what else we have.

- [Pamela] Then, a local potter's story.

- As a self-taught potter, you don't have all the restraints of all the disciplines, of all the rules.

(clay thumps) (bright music) (bright music continues) - Good evening and welcome to "Rhode Island PBS Weekly."

I'm Pamela Watts.

- And I'm Michelle San Miguel.

We begin tonight with decades old controversy about a treatment for women going through menopause.

- This life chapter is more than a passing phase.

Many suffer a myriad of debilitating medical issues for a decade, or more.

As we first reported last June, there's growing interest in this area of women's health, exploring how old and new research is shaping the medical care women receive.

Producer, Isabella Jibilian, has our story.

- It was rage for no reason.

I felt bile coming out of my mouth, and didn't feel any way to control it.

The only one I wasn't mad at was the dog - [Isabella] Artist, Tanya Glover, was 45 years old when she started noticing symptoms that she couldn't explain.

- The anxiety big time, that was the worst one.

The night sweats, the irregular periods, heavy periods.

I just felt like I was kind of losing it a little bit.

And a friend of mine said something about perimenopause.

I'm like, what is that?

- [Isabella] It's a familiar story for Dr. Mary Jane Minkin.

- Menopausal symptoms, perimenopausal symptoms, can be extraordinarily disruptive to women.

- [Isabella] Those symptoms can include increased anxiety, hot flashes, migraines, insomnia, vaginal dryness, and changes in sexual desire.

And Dr. Minkin says, "All too often they aren't taken seriously."

- I just feel horrible for so many of these women who come in and they've been miserable for so long, for no good reason.

We have some great therapies for them so that people can lead totally normal lives.

- [Isabella] Those therapies are going unused because traditional treatment, hormone replacement therapy, developed a bad reputation in 2002.

Dr. Minkin says, "A study called the Women's Health Initiative, or WHI, changed everything."

- I remember where I was when JFK was shot.

I remember where I was at 9/11.

And I remember where I was on July 9th, 2002.

- [Isabella] The hormone estrogen has been successfully used to treat menopause symptoms since the '40s.

- [Dr. Minkin] And many people started viewing estrogen as sort of a fountain of youth.

- [Isabella] Scientists hypothesized that it could help with other diseases.

- Dr. Grant prescribed Premarin.

- [Isabella] And in the '90s it was put to the test.

- The birth of the Women's Health Initiative was to study, does estrogen really help prevent heart disease?

- [Isabella] About 27,000 women were divided into two groups.

Women who had hysterectomies were given estrogen, or a placebo.

Women with uteruses were given estrogen, and a synthetic progesterone, or a placebo.

- It was supposed to go on for over 10 years.

- [Isabella] Dr. Renee Eger is the director of the menopause program at Women and Infants Hospital.

- After five years, there was noted to be a statistically increased risk of breast cancer in the women who took the estrogen, plus the synthetic progesterone.

- That basically stopped the study dead in its tracks.

Indeed, I got more calls that day than ever before, or ever after.

Everybody was terrified, you know, "I'm taking this estrogen.

I'm gonna get breast cancer and die."

- That study made it onto the front-page of "The New York Times."

It was the topic of talk shows.

The number of prescriptions for hormone replacement therapy decreased by 85%.

Those numbers have not rebounded.

- [Isabella] Today, Tanya Glover, takes an anti-anxiety medication for her menopause related depression and anxiety.

- Wait for me.

It's taken the edge off.

That's it though (laughing).

It's still there.

I probably couldn't do a job, a regular job.

I don't think I could handle it, and that's not an option for a lot of people.

- Did you ever consider hormone therapy?

- I considered it.

My doctor told me most insurances don't cover it.

And it's pretty expensive.

And, you know, you hear about the cancer risks, and I don't know who to believe.

- [Isabella] Who and what to believe about the WHI's findings has been the question for the last 20 plus years.

- The actual increased numbers of breast cancer was only eight women out of every 10,000 women.

So from a clinical standpoint, it was questionable whether that was actually significant, but from a statistical standpoint, the study was so large that they had to conclude that there was statistical significance.

- [Isabella] Plus, the women who were studied weren't your standard candidates for hormone therapy.

- The average age of women enrolled in the WHI was 63.

The average age of women going through menopause is 51.

So you had these women who were way post menopause.

Oh, by the way, 20% of the women were between 70 and 79 in the WHI.

And do I enroll a lot of women, or start women in the 70s in general on estrogen?

Not really.

- [Isabella] In May, a study published in the "Journal of the American Medical Association" took another look at data from the WHI, and other studies, and found that hormones were safe for many women under 60 to take.

- The hormone replacement therapy of 2024 looks very different than it did back in 2002.

We learned that the use of probably a synthetic progestogen does likely increase a woman's risk of breast cancer.

And we've changed the way in which we deliver our estrogen.

We used to deliver it orally, and now it can be delivered through the skin, and there's increased safety associated with delivering the medication that way.

- How safe do you consider hormone therapy to be?

- For women who are at low risk, and appropriate candidates for hormone therapy, hormone therapy is very safe when you look at the risks versus the potential benefits associated with it.

We no longer tell women that they absolutely are, or are not candidates for hormone therapy, but rather have individualized discussions with patients, and take a look at their past medical history.

I think it's also important that people understand that there are alternatives to hormone therapy because hormone therapy isn't necessarily the right choice for every woman.

- Are most providers prepared to have this kind of in-depth conversation?

- I think a lot of that depends on when an individual completed their residency.

- [Isabella] Dr. Minkin says that's because the WHI changed the way doctors are trained.

- Because women stopped using estrogen in droves, most programs training residents in OBGYN, and some other specialties, basically stopped teaching how to manage menopause.

- So they didn't think they had any good treatment options, and, therefore, they stopped teaching about menopause altogether.

- Exactly.

Even as of last year, 70% of the OBGYN programs in the United States were not teaching menopause management.

(knocking) - [Dr. Eger] Hi, it's Dr. Eger.

- [Isabella] And many patients don't believe their symptoms can be treated safely.

- The data bears out that most women who are having hot flashes are actually not seeking medical attention.

- [Isabella] But there are signs that change is happening.

- This is a big year for menopause, by the way, big year.

Just a little over a year ago it was the cover story of "The New York Times Sunday Magazine."

The title was "Women Have Been Misled About Menopause" and this started a revolution.

- Why is such a critical part of women's health being ignored?

- This is a normal part of the perimenopause to menopause transition.

- Menopause on page 242 is mandatory, suffering is not.

- [Isabella] On social media.

- Good morning metaverse.

- Okay, do your periods just stop when you enter menopause?

- Can you tell me what menopause is?

- When a woman no longer experiences their period?

- Good for you.

- [Isabella] And in government.

Last March, former President Biden signed an executive order to expand women's health research, noting menopause as a particular area of interest.

- [Narrator] This is a hot flash.

- And a new non-hormonal drug has become available, and was advertised during the past Super Bowl.

As for Tanya Glover, it's been a long, turbulent phase of life.

How many years has it been now?

- At least 10.

- Of perimenopause.

- I haven't had a period since last March, so I'm, like, a week or two away from full-blown menopause.

- How does that feel?

- I don't wanna jinx it (laughing) but it feels like relief is right around the corner.

I need that.

- Up next.

From harlequin ducks to snowy owls, Rhode Island attracts migratory birds from as far as the Arctic Circle.

As we first reported in January of 2023, when the temperature in the Arctic starts to plummet, many bird-watchers hope to catch a glimpse of these winged visitors as they pass through the Ocean State.

Soon after the sun rises over this rocky coastline (waves crashing) bird lovers gather.

- Have any of you been to Black Point before?

Some of you maybe?

Okay.

- [Michelle] Excited for what winter wildlife they might find.

- [Don] You heard a catbird?

- [Participant] Yeah, it was a big gray.

- [Don] I didn't see it, but good.

Oh, there it is, yeah.

Indeed, yeah, in this shrub back here, there's a catbird.

- [Michelle] Every Wednesday morning, the Audubon Society of Rhode Island organizes a birdwalk.

- [Don] So I'm gonna leave this low for people.

- [Michelle] On this day, the group is trekking through the Black Point Fishing Area in Narragansett off of Ocean Road.

- [Don] So in my scope, if you wanna look, there are some surf scoters.

- [Michelle] They're looking for birds that flock to Rhode Island during the wintertime.

- [Participant] Don, they have that orange beak, right?

- They have an orange beak, and they have that white patch on their chin, and on the back of their head.

- [Michelle] Including the ever-popular harlequin ducks.

- You typically see the harlequins close to shore where the waves are breaking.

They like the stirred up water.

- [Michelle] These enthusiasts know there's a short window of time to get the best view of these colorful ducks.

- [Don] So there's harlequin ducks.

Let's see what else we have.

- [Michelle] But birders don't have to travel to the coast to spot winter wildlife.

(camera snapping) Photographer, Jason Major, likes to venture into the woods along the Pawtuxet River Trail in Cranston.

(camera snapping) - So the Pawtuxet River Trail has a few owls, resident owls of its own.

I've spotted some barred owls here.

They're pretty easy to spot, and they're very photogenic.

(birds chirping) - [Michelle] Some of those walks have resulted in mesmerizing pictures.

(camera snapping) He's captured it all from these black scoters in Charlestown to mergansers in Conimicut.

He's also photographed a short-eared owl in flight, and on the ground, as well as a group of seals he found resting on rocks in Sakonnet Point.

(bird squawking) - [Jason] That was a kingfisher.

- [Michelle] The one that just perched up on?

- [Jason] The one that made that squawky sound.

- [Michelle] We set out one January morning to see what we could find.

(camera snapping) And soon into our hike, Major was clicking away.

(camera snapping) He spotted a green-winged teal in the river.

There was also a male belted kingfisher perched on a tree, and a dark-eyed junco near the banks of the river.

He says these are all birds that can be spotted there in the wintertime.

- [Jason] Wandering over to the other ones, that's nice.

(camera snapping) - Is it easier to spot animals during the winter months?

- Well, just for the sake that, you know, all the leaves are down, so now you can, you know, you can look pretty far into the woods up into the trees, where a lot of birds and other animals are, you know, hiding out, especially during the day.

- [Janet] So, let's see if I can find.

There they are.

- [Michelle] Over in Middletown, there's another flock of birds bobbing around.

Sachuest Point National Wildlife Refuge is home to the second largest wintering population of harlequin ducks on the Atlantic Coast.

- This is the stopover, too, so it's not only a wintering site, a refuge, it's also a stopover.

So if they're migrating through, this is a place for them to rest and rejuvenate, refuel, and then head more south.

- [Michelle] Janet Nepshinsky is the visitor services manager for the Rhode Island National Wildlife Refuges.

What a beautiful day.

- [Janet] It is.

- [Michelle] Oh yeah, it's not bone-chilling, it's comfortable.

- [Janet] Yeah.

- [Michelle] She showed us some of the winter birds that migrate to Rhode Island for part of the season.

- [Janet] Sometimes there's some up on this edge around the corner.

They're still in the water there.

- [Michelle] Sachuest Point sits on 242 acres, complete with marshes, meadows, and beaches.

- [Janet] And this is where a lot of birds will come to rest and to feed.

- [Michelle] Nepshinsky led us down a path on the preserve to spot some wintering waterfowl.

- Look right in here.

Do you see the two ducks?

- [Michelle] Oh I do, how beautiful.

- You wouldn't have noticed (laughing).

- [Michelle] Oh I see them.

(waves splashing) - [Janet] They bop up and down.

- Yeah, now I don't see them (laughing).

- [Janet] Go down.

- Oh, now I see them again (laughing).

Wow.

- [Janet] And you can always look for them in the whitewater rafting.

- It didn't take long to find our share of winter birds.

How beautiful.

The day Michelle became a birder.

Oh, I see four (laughing).

Nepshinsky says they come down from Canada and the Arctic Coast to bask in the relatively warmer Rhode Island waters.

- Many of them spend the whole season.

Seaducks will spend the whole season, so you got the common eider, bufflehead, harlequin, scaup, mergansers, quite a few.

- You light up as you're talking about this.

- I know, they're just beautiful.

- [Michelle] It's exciting.

- Yeah, it is.

So, that's why people will brave it, the winter cold out here, but then I see people just enjoying walking.

(footsteps crunching) You can just tell.

They get fresh air, their spirits, you know, get refreshed.

It's almost like the migratory birds, when they stop over, the people are also stopping here to rest, and to refuel their spirits, just like the birds.

- [Jason] Come on.

There she is.

(camera snapping) - [Michelle] Major says, "Going outside has been therapeutic for him, too."

- A lot of times during those really tough winter months that we've had previously, I just don't feel like doing anything.

And getting out, and getting my camera, and getting my gear, and going out into the woods, sometimes is a little bit, I have to push myself to do it, but every time I do, I feel so much better being, you know, spending some time outdoors, even if it's only half an hour.

Now, what are those over there?

- [Michelle] He's on the search for a snowy owl this season.

No luck yet, but he's hopeful.

He's photographed them in previous years at Sachuest Point.

- The snowy owls are always your more exciting animals, your more exciting birds, just because of their rarity.

You know, some years they might not show up at all.

So when one does, they usually attract a lot of attention.

- In the winter, we could be fortunate enough to see the snowy owl 'cause they come here to feed.

- [Michelle] But Nepshinsky says, "It's important to keep distance from these majestic birds, and stay at least 200 feet away."

- Even though it's kind of looking at you, and you think that, oh yeah, look, they want attention.

They could be having a lot of stress go on, and they're hunting.

So if you disturb when they're hunting, they're not getting enough food to go back to where they come, like, the Arctic coast.

And they will die on the way.

We had four snowy owls were dead from malnutrition.

They didn't have enough food in them.

(camera snapping) - [Jason] Those might be more females, interesting.

- [Michelle] Once Major spots wildlife along the Pawtuxet, he enjoys coming back to check on them from a distance.

- I think it's really neat to be able to experience them while they're on their long journeys.

- And you'll be out here, even when it's in the teens, 20 degrees.

That won't deter you from coming out?

- Well, it doesn't stop the birds from coming out, so it's not gonna stop me from coming out.

- [Don] The worst thing you can do is try to find a bird in the scope before you know where it is.

- [Michelle] And it's also not stopping these birders from scanning the skies.

- [Don] It looks like a loon to me, but let's see.

- [Michelle] They know the change in season comes with unique sights and sounds.

- [Don] Who would think this is January?

(participants laughing) - And finally tonight, it's one of the oldest art forms in human history, but these days the craft has garnered new audiences, from scores of likes on social media, to television shows like "The Great Pottery Throw Down."

Last April, Producer, Isabella Jibilian, introduced us to a Rhode Island potter, who gave us his thoughts on how clay becomes art.

This story is part of our continuing My Take series.

(clay thumps) - From a lump of nothing, you can create this functional, or sculptural work.

(soft music) And I think it's magic.

(Dwo Wen Chen claps hands) My name is Dwo Wen Chen, and this is my take on pottery.

I am a studio potter, and I've been doing this for over 20 years now.

(soft music) I grew up in Taiwan in a really small farming village.

We did not have any video games, or toys to speak of.

We had to create our own toys.

And I remember one of the things we do is we pinched clay pots.

At that time, I did not know that they're clay pots, you know, just like mud from the rice field.

We pinch it and then we would slam it on the ground to see whose pot created the biggest hole.

So that's our game (laughing).

I have always been a painter, and I never had thought that I would become a potter.

- [Isabella] And why did you become a potter?

- Out of necessity.

I couldn't sell any of my paintings, but I managed to sell all of my, at that time, very rudimentary pinch pots.

This is one of my first pots.

There's just no technique to it (laughing).

I just love the passion of it, I think.

I thought there was probably a little future in the pottery making for me.

(soft bright music) Being self-taught, you don't have all the restraints of all the disciplines, of all the rules.

(machine whirring) I really go into the pottery making blindfolded in a way.

And, therefore, I make a lot of mistakes.

(clay thumps) I think I have to redo it.

I'm even tempted to say I make all the mistakes (laughing) there is to make in pottery making.

But out of that, I came up with some pretty creative way of having a final piece.

I'm gonna collapse the center to form a double wall.

I was collaborating with this chef to come up with a piece for his restaurant to serve a little appetizer.

His inspiration is he wants me to mimic the shape of a cornerstone that's been indented by the dripping of the rainwater.

- [Isabella] How many times did you fail making this before?

- Oh, maybe more than 100, 200 times (chuckling).

And the more I fail, the more I wanna make it happen.

And there we have a base of a pillow bowl.

The history of pottery making, it's, of course, born out of necessity.

People need vessels to use for their meals.

As you can see, this is a hand-pinched pinch pot, but with the handle, they usually, they would rope it, and hang it on an open fire.

It's close to 5,000 year old in the Tai Tou Chinese cultural period.

I remember at a younger age, being in the Western art education, I was trying to disguise my Eastern heritage, you know, trying to fit in.

In any of my creations, my heritage just naturally comes through, and that's when I'm most comfortable with my work.

And then I learn not to fight it, and instead trying to find a way to combine it, you know, to find a good balance between the two.

(soft music) My understanding of pottery is we're creating something that people can use in their everyday life.

It's a small pleasure to enhance somebody's daily life.

And for me, that's art enough.

(Dwo Wen Chen claps hands) My name is Dwo Wen Chen, and this is my take on pottery.

- Since we aired this story, Dwo Wen Chen's work has been exhibited at the Smithsonian Craft Show in Washington, D.C. And that's our broadcast this evening.

Thank you for joining us.

I'm Pamela Watts.

- And I'm Michelle San Miguel.

We'll be back next week with another edition of "Rhode Island PBS Weekly."

Until then, please follow us on Facebook, and YouTube, and visit us online to see all of our stories, and past episodes at ripbs.org/weekly, or listen to our podcast on your favorite streaming platform.

Goodnight.

(bright music) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues)