Holmes Patricia - Girlology - A Girl's Guide to Stuff that Matters

Finally, we are most appreciative of the thousands of mothers who have trusted us to start important conversations with their daughters, and to the daughters who have taught us so much. Keep on talking!

About the Authors

In a casual conversation one day, Dr. Melisa Holmes, an ob-gyn and Dr. Trish Hutchison, a pediatrician, laughed about how often mothers seem to stiffen with fear when the topics of puberty and sexuality come up. “How do I start the conversation?” “What do I say?” “Can I just bring my child to you and let you give her the talk ?” These questions are a daily occurrence in both of their offices. Fortunately, moms have come to the right place because Drs. Holmes and Hutchison are both passionate about helping girls feel good about and understand their changing bodies.

In over twenty years of combined experience as popular, overbooked physicians, Dr. Holmes and Hutchison have answered these questions innumerable times. Now they can’t believe how much fun they have providing programs to families to help get these conversations started!

Since 2002, these physicians have developed two programs for mother-daughter pairs, a series of classes for older teens (males and females), and several programs for parents only. All of their classes fill up rapidly and each class generates a new group of waiting participants for the next program. The demand has spread far beyond their hometown of Charleston, South Carolina and beyond what these two practicing physicians can offer.

Dr. Holmes is a native of Atlanta, Georgia, a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Georgia, and a graduate of the Medical College of Georgia. Following her ob-gyn internship and residency at the Medical College of Virginia, Melisa joined the faculty at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston where she holds joint appointments in Obstetrics/Gynecology and Pediatrics, and has been named among the Best Doctors in America. During her twelve years of clinical practice, she was director of the MUSC Teen Clinic and founder and director of the Sexual Assault Follow-up Evaluation (SAFE) clinic. As a nationally recognized advocate for adolescent health, she has served on the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology Committee on Adolescent Health Care, and the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. She has written numerous peer-reviewed scientific papers in the medical literature, as well as textbook chapters on a variety of subjects related to adolescent gynecology and care of the sexual assault victim. In the medical community, she is a nationally recognized speaker on topics of adolescent gynecology, teen sexuality, interpersonal violence, and other issues in women’s health. Her daughter Emily has been a special consultant to Girlology, her middle daughter, Caroline, knows her time is coming soon, and her youngest, Ella (still a baby) will keep Dr. Holmes in touch with girls for a long time to come.

Dr. Hutchison is a South Carolina girl. She grew up in Rock Hill, graduated cum laude from the College of Charleston and earned her M.D. at the Medical University of South Carolina. After completing her Pediatrics internship and residency at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Trish came back to Charleston, where she was in private practice for ten years. She currently practices in the Adolescent Medicine Department at MUSC where she directs Girls2Women, a young women’s health center. She, too, has been named among the Best Doctors in America. She developed her interest in adolescents during years of peer counseling and youth mentoring. Today, she continues to enjoy the challenges and rewards of adolescent medicine. In her community, her practice has always been full of adolescent girls and boys. She has an amazing way with teens and at the same time earns their parents unwavering respect and trust. She is recognized as a wonderful resource in her community for health-related issues, particularly related to growth and development, and sexuality and behavioral issues. Trish is actively involved in community service organizations and in her church. She has also participated in mission work delivering health care to children and adolescents, but she mostly likes sticking close to home, where her two girls, Anne Claire and Maehler, keep her busy with little girl versions of Girlology.

Girlology has become a recognized and welcomed program in the Southeast that is ripe for broad distribution. Girlology’s focus on suburban girls and families serves an often neglected population that is over-scheduled, undersupervised and frequently oversexed. Both Dr. Holmes and Dr. Hutchison are known for their rapport with teen girls and their liberal use of slang words for anything pertaining to sex or the human body. Their husbands can only hope that they censor their vocabulary in public, and their mothers keep wishing they would act like proper Southern girls.

For more information on Girlology programs, check out their Web site at www.girlology.com.

Table of Contents

PART ONE: Stuck in the Middle

1 Why Me? Why Now?

2 Friends Who Rock and Friends Who [Need to] Roll!

3 Where Have All the Normal Parents Gone?

PART TWO: Body Talk

4 Not Your Usual Vocabulary List!

5 Everybody’s Got a Body

6 Periods, Period

7 Boy, Oh Boy!

8 S-E-X

PART THREE: There’s More to Sex!

9 Sexuality: Good News, Bad News

10 Mixed Messages

11 Crush or True Love?

12 When IsWhat Okay?

PART FOUR: Growing Real Girl Power

13 Get Your Girl Power On!

Acknowledgments

PART ONE Stuck in the Middle

1Why Me? Why Now?

2Friends Who Rock and Friends Who [Need to] Roll!

PART TWO Body Talk

4Not Your Usual Vocabulary List!

5Everybody’s Got a Body

PART THREE There’s More to Sex!

9Sexuality:Good News, Bad News

10Mixed Messages

11Crush or True Love?

12When Is What Okay?

PART FOURGrowing Real Girl Power