Helen Bernie

What inspired you to work in sexual medicine?

There are so many ways I could answer this. I think, like all things, you find an area that interests you; that you feel you can connect to. Then you get lucky and find some amazing mentors who do what you want to do, and who inspire you and encourage you. And then as life has a way of working things out, your path starts to fall in front of you and every experience and event, seems to have always been pointing you to this field all along. I love being able to dramatically improve patients’ quality of life and overall health. I think in the field of sexual medicine we get to play a really special role in learning the most intimate details of our patients’ lives, and from there we can enact significant change and improve their quality of life, their confidence, restore relationships, increase their overall health and impact the trajectory of that man’s life for years to come. That’s really special!

What is the most rewarding aspect of your career?

That at the end of the day I not only get to help dramatically improve patients’ sexual health and intimacy, but I can make a significant impact on their OVERALL health and wellness. When patients come to see me, SEX or FERTILITY may be what brought them in my door, but it gives me the opportunity to talk to them about their blood sugar control and HgA1c levels, their smoking status, refer them to a PCP if they don’t have one and call out their undiagnosed high blood pressure. As gatekeepers of men’s health, we often see men first, and we have such a valuable role we can play in dramatically improving overall men’s health and that is why I absolutely love what I do so much!

What is something most people don’t know about you? 

I am an introvert. :)

What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

I have two pieces of advice that were given to me that have always stuck with me. 1. “When determining what you want to do in life and your specialty, really spend the time and effort figuring this out. You should spend just as much time finding your spouse one day, as you do determining your career path, because you will likely spend just as much time or more, at work, than you will with your future spouse. Go to the conferences in your specialty, speak to multiple people who do what you want to do, go to journal clubs, expose yourself in every arena to make sure it’s the right fit for you, because everybody has hard days and burn out, but if you love what you do it will always bring you back around.” 2. Lastly, just good advice: “You make time for what's important to you.” As a married mom of 3 boys under 6 years old, I am often thinking of this one and I fail a lot, but if something is really important, no matter what, you make the time for it. We all get the same 24 hours a day.

What would your ideal vacation be?

Somewhere warm and tropical on a beach with my family.