Your patient is lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. What should you know? The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) has issued a resource to inform medical educators about the special issues associated with these patient populations. The resource is available as a free, downloadable PDF at the association’s website.
The release of this reference may raise questions among all corners of healthcare about how well clinicians are informed and equipped to offer treatment for individuals who fall under the LGBT umbrella.
According to the resource’s information page on the AAMC’s website the resource aims to reduce disparities among the LGBT community by helping them learn to address specific health care needs of this population. Likewise, the website states, healthcare institutions must promote a climate that supports, values, and includes individuals in these populations.
The resource is written by the AAMC’s Advisory Committee on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Sex Development. The resource reportedly was created to achieve the following objectives:
- Provide education about the health needs of individuals who are LGBT, gender nonconforming, and/or born with DSD, and the role of academic medicine and the health care system in supporting these populations.
- Support medical schools by discussing how to integrate this content into medical education, with a focus on the role of institutional climates.
- Provide a framework to facilitate the assessment of learners, curricula, and institutions.
- Highlight national resources and curricular innovations within academic medicine.
The publication reportedly can be useful to anyone who wants to become more familiar with medical education and desires to use medical school curricula and climate to address the health disparities and health care issues faced by these populations.
[Source: Association of American Medical Colleges]
