When Women Speak, Medicine Listens
The Balance Project is collaborating with RCSI — how your story could shape the future of menopause care in Ireland
The room where it shifted
You know the feeling. That particular hum in a room when women realise they’re not the only one. The nodding starts. Shoulders drop. And a hand goes up — not to ask a question, but to say, quietly and finally, “Yes. That was me too.”
That was the room at the RCSI Your Menopause Matters workshop — our very first community gathering as The Balance Club, the in-person heart of The Balance Project. We came expecting information. We left with something bigger: validation, a bit of collective fire, and the very real sense that the women in that room could genuinely change how healthcare sees us.
Meet Project CHIME
The RCSI workshop introduced us to Project CHIME — Creating Holistic & Inclusive Menopause Education — led by the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI). The idea is simple: make sure the doctors, nurses and health professionals of tomorrow actually understand menopause. Not just the textbook symptoms — the lived reality.
RCSI students have identified that, for too long, menopause has barely been mentioned in medical training. The result is a lot of well-meaning professionals who feel under-equipped, and a lot of women who have experienced various levels of care — while their sleep, work, mood and sense of self quietly unravel.
CHIME wants to change that. And they know a curriculum can’t be built from theory alone. It needs the truth of what women actually go through.
This is where you come in
CHIME is inviting women with lived experience of perimenopause, menopause or post-menopause to share their stories — and you decide how much or how little feels right. No pressure to perform. No need to have it all neatly figured out. No wrong way to tell it. What matters is that it’s honest.
The symptoms that weren’t taken seriously. The treatment that helped — or didn’t. The conversation you wish you’d had. The gaps you fell through. All of it will directly shape a medical curriculum — not as a footnote, but as a foundation. What you share could genuinely change how the next generation of doctors understands what’s happening in women’s bodies, and women’s lives.
The Balance Project x RCSI — a new chapter
We’re so proud to say that The Balance Project is teaming up with RCSI and the CHIME team on this — opening the invitation to take part while on our hormone intelligence workshops, our retreats, or at any of our community events. And, if you cant make any of these, follow our socials and you can still be part of this research.
It’s something we’ve believed from day one: community isn’t just a source of support, it’s a source of knowledge. The women who show up to our events, share in our spaces and come to our retreats aren’t only there to learn — you are the experts. Your hard-won wisdom, your frustration, your trial and error, your resilience — that’s data medicine has overlooked for far too long.
So we’re building a bridge: a direct route from the stories shared in our community to the halls of RCSI, and into how Ireland’s future healthcare professionals learn about menopause.
Why this matters now
Menopause is finally having its moment — and about time. But visibility on its own can fade. CHIME goes deeper, right to the root: the education of the people who’ll hold our records, write our prescriptions and sit across from us in GP surgeries for decades to come.
Picture it. A woman in her early forties with anxiety, joint pain and irregular periods met with recognition rather than confusion. Where the links between hormones and mood, heart health, bone density and brain fog are simply understood — standard, not specialist.
That future is absolutely buildable. And the building material is your story.
How to share yours
If you’d like to contribute to the CHIME curriculum, you can take part through The Balance Project:
— Follow along on our community channels, where we’ll post how to submit your story securely and confidentially directly to the RCSI. The link to the CHIME survey: Here
— Come to a workshop or retreat, where we’ll share how to get involved in person.
— Just reach out to us if you’d rather be connected with the CHIME team directly.
And remember — you share as much or as little as you like. There’s no single template for a “useful” story. Yours, in whatever form you can offer it, is more than enough.ul” story. Yours, in whatever form you can offer it, is more than enough.
The women in the room
Back at that first workshop, after one particularly raw story, the facilitator asked if anyone else had been through something similar. Half the room’s hands went up. Some women were crying. Some were laughing — that particular laugh women do when the truth finally lands. Nobody performing. Nobody is holding it in.
That’s the energy we’re carrying into this collaboration. Women who’ve lived something real, who know things the textbooks haven’t caught up with yet, lending that knowledge to a system that’s finally — finally — ready to listen.
We’re honoured to be part of this bridge. And we’d love for you to walk across it with us.
To find out more about The Balance Club, our upcoming events, and how to share your experience with Project CHIME, follow us or visit thebalanceproject.ie. The conversation — and the change — starts with us.
Always with balance. Always with you.
Blog by Georgie Sliney McCormack & Helen Flynn
Georgie and Helen are the co-founders of The Balance Project. Through their work, they are committed to making women's health information more accessible, informed, and empowering. They believe better conversations lead to better understanding, better support, and better outcomes for women.
