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Shema Tariq FRCP PhD

@drshematariq

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Dr & Academic @ucl | Research on pandemics; HIV & women; menopause | Writing a book on vaginal speculums | Trustee @tommys | 🇵🇸

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I can finally announce that I am MOST DEFINITELY writing a book!

My book ‘Speculum: Women, Power and the Medical Gaze’ has been acquired by @vikingbooksuk and @thedialpress in the US (both imprints of @penguinrandomhouse), and is scheduled to be published in Spring 2028. I trace the ways in which women’s bodies are viewed by medicine - and how this impacts our care - through the lens of one highly contested and symbolic object: the vaginal speculum. Its story has never been told and I’m so excited to have the chance to share it with you all.

I have an incredible powerhouse team of women helping me bring this book to life @sabhbhc at @curtisbrownbooks, Rebecca Gradinger at @utapublishing, and my editors @evangeline_s and @mayagramz.

I would not be on this journey without the support of @londonwriterscentre @wellcomecollection non-fiction award, and the generous support of other writers and mentors including @rageshriwrites @leahhazard @annabel_dover.

I am absolutely thrilled - I’ve always wanted to be a writer and at the age of fifty that dream is coming true. So, in part, my new journey as a writer is a testament to the power of midlife. I wouldn’t have had the confidence, experience and wisdom to write this book in my twenties. In my fifties, full of rage and creative fire, and out of fucks to give, I’m ready to take up all the space I need.

Keep following as so much more to come (80,000 words to be exact).

#writersofinstagram #nonfiction #feminism #historyofmedicine #foucault by @drshematariq

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5 months ago

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9 months ago

One thing I’ve learned as a sexual health doctor, and now someone writing a book on speculums, is that EVERYONE has a speculum story. You’ve either had a speculum examination (usually a smear test), or you know someone who has. That’s how ubiquitous this plastic tubey thing is.

I want to turn the tables and examine it, rather than be examined by it. And I need your help. I’m looking for folk to share their speculum stories.

My book explores what the vaginal speculum tells us about society’s attitudes to women’s bodies (and anyone with a cervix) and our pain. By understanding how women’s bodies have been viewed and managed in history, I hope to plot a route to better care and more bodily autonomy. As reproductive rights are stripped away, this project has become more urgent.

I’d love to include real life experiences (anonymously unless you want to be named). It’s important to me, as a feminist writer, that the book centres the voices of women and people with a cervix.

So if you’re a cisgender woman or gender non-confirming person with a cervix, and you have a speculum story (or an opinion about speculums) that you’d like to share, head over to the link in my bio. You can be anywhere in the world. There’s also space to include your email if you’d be willing to be interviewed by me for my book.

Please share this invitation far and wide. Help me tell the story of the speculum!

#womenshealth #reproductiverights #reproductivejustice #gynaecology #smeartest #sexualhealth by @drshematariq

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a year ago

Thirty thousand people came together in remembrance tonight, and celebrated Professor Jason Arday’s life and work. I still can’t fathom a world in which a young, gifted sociologist could be hounded to his death by a media looking for clicks during a ‘slow news week’. Academia will be so much poorer for his loss.

I know many racially minoritised academics (especially my Black colleagues) will be questioning our place in the academy, when our institutions can’t protect us. This is when we come together and provide each other with the support and sponsorship we won’t get elsewhere. My DMs are open to any academic who is feeling the weight of the past few week’s events.

Rest in power Professor Arday. by @drshematariq

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2 months ago

I’ve not been posting much….for good reasons. For the past few months I’ve been immersed in researching and writing my forthcoming @vikingbooksuk @thedialpress book ‘Speculum: women, power and the medical gaze’ (due to be published in Spring 2028).

The process of writing often takes you places…emotionally, intellectually, physically and geographically. This book is doing all of that and some. Today, on day 1000 of the Great British Heatwave, I found myself at the @sciencemuseum Science and Innovation Park.

Only 5-10% of the museum’s artefacts are exhibited at any one point of time. The other 90% is stored in one of eight large hangars in a former RAF airfield on the outskirts of Swindon.

No prizes for guessing what I was there for…..

An extraordinary place - and one that is free to visit. You can either come on a group tour day, or make a request if you’re interested in specific objects. We are incredibly lucky to have public museums like this and need to treasure them - they help us connect our present to the past. Everything just feels a little more human when you’re in a room with objects touched by patients and their doctors hundreds of years ago.

By the way, can you tell how much I LOVE my new writing career - at 50 I’ve found the thing I should have always been doing ❤️

#womenshealth #speculum #nonfictionwriting #writersofinstagram #medicalhistory by @drshematariq

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3 months ago

What should be the role of lab tests in figuring out whether a person is in perimenopause? In this #TransitionTuesday clip, HIV physician and researcher Shema Tariq, PhD, FRCP, breaks down how she approaches diagnosing perimenopause depending on the person’s age.

The final Tuesday of each month is our time for demystifying, learning about, and celebrating #menopause and related life transitions for women and other people living with #HIV who have menstruated. More to come in July!

Learn more ➡️ bit.ly/WomenAgingPositively

#womenlikeus #agingpositively by @drshematariq

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4 months ago

My amazing, warm-hearted and hugely fun yoga teacher @charlotteguezian took some of us to a gorgeous day retreat in a hidden corner of the Sussex countryside. Yoga, sauna, plunge, quality time with my kindle (devouring Presence by @erinmaglaque - an exquisitely written embodied history of women) a rainbow of food, and connection. I was so relaxed I missed the last yoga session as I was snoozing in a hammock. But because my yoga teachers teach with compassion and always offer rest, I felt zero guilt or FOMO. I took exactly what I needed.

I was close to pulling out as work is so intense at the moment. But I then realised that work is always intense and that my body needs rest and gentle movement (and a nap in the sun).

Thanks Char - you created magic today. I can’t wait for the next one.

Also - props to me for (haphazardly) prioritising my wellbeing through 2026. I’m coming home happier and less frazzled. by @drshematariq

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4 months ago

*Calling any GPs or nurses in the UK who do #menopause consultations*

Our team are working with a brilliant MSc student (an engineer from the US who is passionate about women’s health) on a study on menopause consultations. This work will help us develop a conversation tool to support people to prepare for menopause consultations. We’ll be hosting design workshops with people affected by menopause next month.

Roxy is looking for healthcare providers who can spare 30 mins online to talk about menopause consultants - what works, what doesn’t, what do you cover, what would help make them easier and more effective for patients and yourselves (apart from more time and NHS funding - sadly we’re not miracle workers)!

This work is part of the broader programme of work @profjoyceharper and I are doing on menopause support at UCL as part of InTune.

Any questions then DM me. If you want to take part you can book a short interview slot using the QR code.

#womenshealth #menopause by @drshematariq

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4 months ago

Nine.

Time feels elastic. I am at once in the delivery room seeing and feeling everything, and propelled forward almost a decade to a new life.

I woke up this morning and hugged my children close. They cycled to school, talking about their ‘big brother’s’ birthday. They’re excited - we’ll have chocolate cake for dinner (Faris is sure this is what Altair would have wanted).

I’m proud - they talk openly about their brother to their friends. Although this now means friends asking me about him on school trips and play dates, when I’m not prepared. I like to think that, in a small way, we’re making it ok to talk about life’s hard stuff.

I’ve come in to work today. Work carries on. Life carries on. A friend and colleague - also a bereaved mum - finds and hugs me, passing me a plant and a note. She remembers. Another friend - who lost her baby - sends a text ‘Altair ❤️’.

So, to mark what would be his ninth birthday, I share this poem for my firstborn son.

My heart aches when I try and imagine who he would be now.

Altair Taylor 10.06.17 by @drshematariq

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4 months ago

A batshit crazy 48h in Brussels.

1. There for work - EU-PROACT is building Europe’s trial network to prepare for the next respiratory pandemic. Very proud to be part of the team presenting social science and linguistics research on making trials fairer and more representative.

2. Escaped to do some book research but found myself in the middle of violent protests against the right wing government. Luckily I was adopted by a lovely Belgian teacher who walked me to safety - ended up wandering and chatting for an hour.

3. Made it to the wonderfully weird and macabre Musee de la Medicine on the outskirts of Brussels. Anatomical models of mythical creatures, a preserved rat, a wall of wax model diseased genitals and two 19th Century Ricord speculums - hurrah 😂 I can’t share many pics as I’d get banned.

4. Shopped for chocolate at Mary (founded in 1919 by the first female chocolatier in Belgium - in the words of a colleague ‘always with the feminism’).

5. Night time walk through the city with @sibylanthierensridereevivere

I feel like I’ve been away for week. I also love that my work leads to me to so many interesting places and brilliant people. by @drshematariq

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4 months ago

“Don’t shrink away from being woke. Who wants to be asleep.”

This deserves a place on my grid.

Meeting your idols is always risky - except when it’s Kimberle Crenshaw (the black feminist law professor who developed intersectionality theory almost forty years ago).

As the world shifts away from compassion, diversity and social justice, it’s easy to feel powerless and isolated. This is when we need community, and leaders like Kimberle Crenshaw.

A balm for the soul to be in a room with her and a a load of other “woke liberals”. She spoke with wisdom, warmth and honesty, giving fire to our bellies to organise and fight for a world where we all belong.

I got my book signed and told her how much she has been a guiding light in my own work (along with the hundreds of others who lined up to meet her).

Thank you Professor Crenshaw. A genuine icon.

#feminism #intersectional #intersectionalitymatters #intersectionalfeminism #proudtobewoke by @drshematariq

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5 months ago

This is (almost) fifty.

I celebrated this milestone age with many of the people I love in a beautiful cocktail bar @56stjames, ten minutes away from our home.

We danced, and laughed into the small hours. I wore the most beautiful @thevampireswife skyrocket dress that I’ve been saving for two years.

We ate the biggest and most OTT cake ever (thanks @papermill_cakes) - we’ll be eating it all week which is no bad thing.

Forty was a tough birthday for many reasons. Fifty, however, feels full of joy, possibility and adventure. And I feel lucky to be entering this decade with so many incredible people in my life.

Thank you to everyone who made last night so special for me - especially my husband @bagtaylor by @drshematariq

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5 months ago