Dr. Jordan Mendoza

My Story

From delivering babies to delivering clarity in midlife care

I grew up in Aurora, Colorado, surrounded by strong women—my mom, aunt, grandmothers, and two sisters, who are still two of my best friends. They shaped so much of who I am, how I raise my three daughters, and ultimately how I care for women today.

After earning my undergraduate degree in biochemistry and my medical degree at the University of Colorado, I completed my residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Anschutz Medical Campus. I went on to spend more than a decade as a generalist OB/GYN in a large healthcare system.

I loved being an OB/GYN. But as the years went on, I became increasingly aware of how poorly traditional medical training had prepared many of us to care for women through perimenopause, menopause, and sexual health concerns.

Early in my career, I sometimes dreaded seeing a hormone consultation on my schedule—not because I didn’t care, but because I knew I didn’t have the knowledge or the time to give those conversations what they deserved.

So I changed that.

I pursued hundreds of hours of additional education in menopause and women’s sexual health, became a Menopause Society Certified Practitioner and ISSWSH Fellow, and found an area of medicine I absolutely loved.

The more I learned, the more obvious something else became: these conversations simply don’t fit well into rushed medicine.

“In a system built for speed, not depth, women deserve better.”

Realizing I Wasn’t Stuck

I spend a lot of my days talking with women in midlife about change. Bodies change. Priorities shift. Careers and relationships evolve. Things that worked for years suddenly don’t fit anymore.

At some point, I realized I was asking my patients to question assumptions that I hadn’t fully questioned for myself.

I will always be grateful for the patients who trusted me, the colleagues who became friends and mentors, and the experiences that shaped me during over 12 years in traditional practice. Those years made me a better physician and gave me a foundation I wouldn’t trade. But they also helped me understand what I wanted the next chapter of my career to look like—and what I wanted to do differently.

I wanted time to listen. Time to explain. Time to read the study someone brought in. Time to talk about the hot flashes and the sex and the bleeding and the marriage and the fact that she didn’t feel like herself anymore — without watching the clock and wondering how I was going to apologize to the next patient I was already 20 minutes late to see.

Somewhere in midlife, I finally realized: I wasn’t stuck either.

“I spent my days telling women they didn’t have to simply accept what wasn’t working. Eventually, I realized I wasn’t stuck either.”

Building Elevated

In December 2024, inspired in part by my husband, Dr. Ben Mendoza, and his decision to build a direct primary care practice outside the traditional insurance model, I opened Elevated Menopause Care & Direct Gynecology alongside my full-time OB/GYN career.

I wanted to see what would happen if I brought that same freedom to women’s healthcare—more time, fewer barriers, and the ability to build care around the patient rather than the constraints of an insurance-based system.

I knew I was going to love it.

I had no idea how quickly it would grow.

Women told their friends, sisters, coworkers, and neighbors. Within a year, hundreds of women had trusted me with some of the most personal parts of their health and their lives.

I will always be incredibly grateful for that trust. Those women gave me the confidence—and ultimately the opportunity—to take a leap I hadn’t really even imagined taking.

Less than a year after opening Elevated, I gave notice and made the decision to step away from traditional practice. By the end of 2025, the practice I had started on the side had become my full-time work.

The Kind of Care I Wanted to Create

At Elevated Menopause Care & Direct Gynecology, we offer something many menopause-focused practices can’t: deep expertise in perimenopause and menopause alongside comprehensive gynecologic care.

That means if you need a Pap smear, IUD, contraception, an endometrial biopsy, or even a polypectomy in the middle of your hormone therapy journey, you don’t have to be sent somewhere else for routine gynecologic care. We can care for the full picture, in one place, with the same thoughtful, evidence-based approach.

And that matters to me. I didn’t want to build a practice focused simply on prescribing hormones. I wanted to create a place where women could bring the complicated, overlapping reality of their health—and have the time to actually talk about it.

More Than a Career Change

Leaving traditional practice changed more than how I practice medicine.

My three daughters are growing up ridiculously fast. As my oldest entered her teenage years, I realized this wasn’t a stage when she needed me less. She needed me differently—and sometimes more than ever.

Building my own practice has given me something incredibly precious: more control over my time.

I can be there for evenings, weekends, holidays, dance, conversations in the car, and the ordinary moments that don’t look important until you realize they’re the ones you don’t get back.

“Like so many of my patients, I’m juggling the joyful chaos and mental load of midlife too.”

And somehow, I didn’t have to choose between being more present for my family and doing meaningful work.

I get to commute to the office with my husband. I spend my days having real—and sometimes incredibly deep—conversations with women. I get to practice medicine at a pace that allows me to think, listen, explain, and actually know the people I’m caring for.

There are still days when I’m a little in awe that this is what I get to do.

And I don’t know if there is anything professionally that feels better than hearing a woman tell me:

“I feel like myself again.”