A Consultant Gynaecologist with expertise in Menopause, Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare and Urogynecology, Neelima has been helping people to design their holistic plan to embrace their wellbeing including their physical, psychological, sexual and spiritual health.

Neelima Deshpande is a gynaecologist from Pune. She has been working in this field for the past thirty years. She has special expertise in menopause and sexual health.

Remembering her childhood, Neelima says she hails from Belgaum. Her father is an ex-army officer and her mother was a gynaecologist too. Neelima lived in many cities because of her father's transferable job. She gives credit to her parents for all the work ethics principles, work style and discipline she has developed in life. The value of always being the best in every activity, being hardworking and doing well in studies were inculcated in her by her parents. She says she also had great teachers during her schooling.

Her curiosity for learning about the human body brought Neelima into the medical field. She completed her undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from BJ Medical College in Pune. She says it was her mother’s wish for her to obtain a PhD in human sexuality. Neelima still remembers the time in the early nineties when she used to visit several book stores looking for books on sexuality. She was the only gynaecologist who used to look for those books.

Sharing her struggles,  Neelima says that her own health challenges following spinal surgery in 2003, meant that she had to develop her knowledge and skills and reinvent her career. She took training in Sexual and Reproductive health, Menopause, Contraception and Psychosexual therapy. She also studied personal development, pain management, meditation, hypnotherapy, EFT, EMDR and several forms of ‘therapies’ to manage the pain and disability that plagued her following the surgery.

When asked about her achievements, Neelima says that, keeping aside her educational qualifications, she thinks her patients’ whole journey from suffering to cure gives her a sense of achievement. She says in our Indian culture, couples do not feel comfortable discussing their sexual lives, even with their doctor. She says she has been part of the massive journeys of several couples who were experiencing problems conceiving a baby, and because of her efforts and treatment, her patients are now blessed to be parents.

Neelima advises people that first of all they need to know and understand their body parts very well in order to understand their sexual health problems, and they must share their problems with their doctors. She also suggests to the doctors that they too have to make their patients so comfortable that they can share their problems openly. Doctors and patients need to visit the same page. Doctors have to listen to their patients well, they have to give them that much time that they can be comfortable to say the words. She says that it is the responsibility of the doctors to help their patients to become more empowered, healthy and happy.

Neelima gives some valuable tips for people to resolve their sexual health issues which are as follows-

• Understanding of body vocabulary to clearly talk about your problem.

• Getting better in interpersonal relationships.

• For doctors, they need to learn about sexual medicine.

• Finding the real reason behind the health issues.

When asked about her role models, Neelima says that whoever she is today, wherever she is, whatever success she has achieved, many people have a hand in that, whom she should thank. But for sure the contribution of her parents is invaluable, who instilled in him the quality of work ethics, values, self-love and acceptance. She has also been influenced by the preachings of her great-grandfather who was a saint.

Neelima’s life mantra is to always remember – The ease of things cannot be changed. They exist as they do. She says these words always bring her back and she asks herself “who you are in this present moment.” She says it always pulls me into the present and forces me to question what I am now and what I want to be and if not what I want to be and what I should do for that. This self-reflexive thought has completely transformed her.