Improving Clinical Education and Training on Sexual and Gender Minority Health

Abstract

Purpose of Review Sexual and gender minority (SGM) populations, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) individuals, continue to experience significant health and healthcare disparities. One mechanism proposed to address these disparities is improving the education of healthcare professionals. This narrative review summarizes recent trends specifically in medical education related to LGBTQ/SGM populations and highlights examples of curricular innovations. Recent Findings Efforts are described in all levels of medical education. The predominant contributions to literature include documenting the current state of education and patient care, including further defining gaps. There are many reports of educational efforts in various institutions, with reports of outcomes mostly in the domain of activity acceptability and learner selfefficacy. Interventions have been developed by both faculty and learners with broad acceptability and perceived value. Summary Existing publications continue to point out needed research in LGBTQ/SGM medical education. We also identify areas for additional innovation efforts.

Association of Coming Out as Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual+ and Risk of Cigarette Smoking in a Nationally Representative Sample of Youth and Young Adults

“… Our work demonstrates the timing and type of sexual identity development matters with regard to smoking behaviors in young people. Public health professionals should recognize the nuances of sexual identity and its effect on health behaviors, rather than homogenizing young people into binary and static sexual identities. This is particularly important given that in our nationally representative sample of youth and young adults, a majority of LGB+ participants reported a change in sexual identity over the 3-year follow-up.…”

Identifying Medicare Beneficiaries Accessing Transgender-Related Care in the Era of ICD-10

“…2 However, without a curricular mandate addressing transgender health and an identity framework in gender-affirming care, it is unlikely that we will see a uniform shift in physician practice just yet. [46][47][48] October 2015 through September 2016 saw many mainstream and affirming conversations about transgender people in the media [49][50][51] ; however, it is not likely that the difference in acceptance and destigmatization would have enough impact on existing prejudice and stigma 52 to explain the near-doubling in the number of transgender beneficiaries identified in our analysis.…”

Pronouns and Advocacy in Medicine

“…6,7,8 To address these disparities and improve patient care, the medical community has started to integrate more training on LGBTQ+ health into medical education. 9 Resources specifically targeting pronoun use among clinicians are also available. 10 There have even been calls to make EHRs more inclusive of nonbinary patients and proposals for an embedded pop-up in EHRs when a patient self-identifies as nonbinary.…”