In Pursuit of “queer-friendly” Healthcare: An Interview Study of How Queer Individuals Select Care Providers

Abstract

LGBQ+ individuals experience worse health outcomes than do other individuals. Some communication research finds that LGBQ+ individuals report receiving poor care during the mid- to post-health care, but this research assumes that LGBQ+ individuals have already received care. Little research has examined the pre- to early encounter experience of LGBQ+ individuals. This study presents exploratory research into how LGBQ+ individuals seek "queer-friendly" health care during pre- and early encounter experiences. Using an interview methodology, we report the facilitators and barriers to seeking queer-friendly care reported by LGBQ+ individuals. We offer implications for how health care providers and systems can better promote queer-friendly healthcare.

Student Journal Club to Improve Cultural Humility with LGBTQ Patients

“…[7][8][9] Students in the journal club not only evaluated articles from their perspective as future medical providers but sometimes had intensely personal reactions based on experience. After reading the article by Hudak and Bates, 28 1 student who identified as a member of the LGBTQ community wrote on the Blackboard discussion board: "At that visit, the nurse gave me attitude for not using birth control and was scoffing at me during my intake. She didn't bother to ask me about my sexuality and there was no identifier on the form to discuss it."…”

“…Assumptions like this create barriers that contribute to medical disparities. Tying back to our previous article, 28 I think there is much we can do in this area to create a more welcoming environment, such as placing LGBT signs in office waiting and patient rooms and avoiding heteronormative intake forms. "…”

Queering the Curriculum: Why Music Therapy and Other Creative Arts Therapy Trainings Need Queer Theory

“…For the purposes of this paper, it may also be helpful to consider that therapists who adopt queer theory as a way of thinking about and contextualizing their work may not always identify as queer themselves but instead use queer theory as an emancipatory framework for their practice. Aiming to provide what has been described as queer friendly healthcare (Hudak & Bates, 2018) which can also be described as queer-affirming. Queer is a term that is sometimes used by straight cis people who engage in ally work to describe themselves (Reynolds, 2010).…”

Embodied Methods in Critical Health Communication

“…Other CHC scholarship uses narrative and performative frameworks to illuminate embodied power dynamics surrounding health and illness as they intersect with disability and ableism (Scott, 2012(Scott, , 2015Spencer, 2019) (in)fertility (Johnson and Quinlan, 2016); pregnancy (Peterson, 2016), heteronormativity (Arrington, 2012;Silverman et al, 2012;Hudak and Bates, 2018), aging (Roscoe, 2018); and dying (Tullis, 2013;Sharf, 2019). A particularly compelling autoethnographic CHC study explores a researcher's (lack of) credibility when she seeks treatment for chronic pain and encounters health care providers and community members who greet her pain-wracked body with doubt, skepticism, and even ridicule (Birk, 2013).…”