SPEAKERS
The experts you'll hear from
Four clinicians who work with women in midlife every day — and who will take your questions from the stage.
Menopause care looks different depending on where you start. The clinicians speaking at Second Spring start in different places — surgery and pelvic health, functional medicine, pharmacy, naturopathy — and each has time on stage to explain how they think about it, and time to take your questions. By 1:00 PM you'll have a much clearer sense of which door is yours.
Every speaker here works with women in midlife every day. They approach it differently — some through hormones, some through the pelvic floor, some through nutrition and the nervous system — and hearing them back to back is a faster way to find what fits you than trying one at a time.
Mila McManus, MD
Functional Medicine Doctor · The Woodlands Institute for Health and Wellness
MD
Board-certified, family medicine
Bioidentical hormone therapy, 2004
Founder of The Woodlands Institute for Health and Wellness, where she has treated patients across the Houston area for more than twenty years. She graduated at the top of her class from UT Houston Medical School in 2000 and is board-certified in family medicine.
After conventional approaches failed to resolve her own health problems and those of her patients, she moved toward treating underlying causes rather than managing symptoms — earning certification in bioidentical hormone therapy in 2004 and building a practice around it. She is the author of Highway to Health: A Nutritional Roadmap.
THE PRACTICE
The Woodlands Institute for Health and Wellness — a functional and integrative medicine practice she founded in 2004, now with a team of four providers. They treat patients in person and by telehealth across Texas, working from hormone and nutrition testing toward individualised plans rather than treating symptoms one at a time.
SPEAKING
Beyond Symptom Management
9:10 – 9:40
Tracy Southwick, ND (Trad.), HHP
Traditional Naturopath · Founder, Heights of Health · Houston Heights
ND (Traditional)
Holistic health practitioner
Nearly three decades in practice
Founder of Heights of Health, a holistic clinic in the Historic Heights with seven practitioners on staff, open since 2007.
Her path into natural medicine started with her own health crisis in the 1990s. She went on to earn a doctorate in naturopathy from Trinity College of Natural Health, ran a natural health store and radio show in the Texas Hill Country, and served as staff naturopath at an integrative medical clinic. In 2020 she founded the Mind Body Spirit Release Academy, an accredited school where she and her staff have trained hundreds of practitioners internationally.
THE CLINIC
Heights of Health — a naturopathic and holistic clinic on Yale Street in the Historic Heights, open since 2007 with seven practitioners on staff. They work on hormone balance, sleep, energy, digestion, and emotional wellbeing using functional medicine lab testing and their own Mind Body Spirit Release method. Also exhibiting at the summit.
Christi Pramudji Dawe, MD
Board-Certified Urogynecologist · LifeSculpt by ChristiMD · West Houston & Galleria
MD
Menopause Society Certified Practitioner
Board-certified urogynecology
A board-certified urogynecologist and surgeon, and a Certified Menopause Practitioner through The Menopause Society. She serves as President of Medical Staff at Houston Methodist West Hospital.
She founded LifeSculpt by ChristiMD, a physician-led practice with locations in West Houston and the Galleria, treating pelvic floor disorders, urinary incontinence, and pelvic organ prolapse alongside menopause and hormone care. She is the author of The BioVitality Blueprint and a Women's Choice Award Best Doctor.
THE PRACTICE
LifeSculpt by ChristiMD — a physician-led practice with locations in West Houston and the Galleria, treating pelvic floor disorders, urinary incontinence, and pelvic organ prolapse alongside menopause and hormone care. One of the few Houston practices where urogynecology and menopause expertise sit under the same roof.
Bryana Burken, PharmD, RPh
Doctor of Pharmacy · Physicians Preference Pharmacy · Katy
PharmD
Registered pharmacist
Published oncology research
A doctor of pharmacy and the physician liaison at Physicians Preference Pharmacy in Katy, a PCAB-accredited compounding pharmacy that prepares bioidentical hormone therapy to each prescriber's specifications.
She took an unusual route into the field — a UC Davis kinesiology graduate who competed internationally as a professional golfer before turning to pharmacy in 2012. While earning her PharmD at Harding University she focused on oncology research, specifically how genetic mutations influence treatment in female breast cancer patients, work published across three journals.
THE PHARMACY
Physicians Preference Pharmacy — a PCAB-accredited compounding pharmacy in Katy that prepares hormone therapy to each prescriber's specifications and ships across Texas. Compounding pharmacists work alongside your prescriber, and are often the most knowledgeable people in the room on how a given therapy is absorbed and dosed.