An often under-looked area in the goal towards minimizing health disparities is in the area of LGBT health. Some educators feel ill-equipped to teach LGBT-competent care or to assist students in facing biases in this area. This page contains numerous resources to help the PA educator accomplish this task.
Data
- Health People 2020. One of the newest objectives of the nationwide health improvement initiative known as Healthy People 2020 is to improve the health, safety, and well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals.
- Top Health Issues for LGBT Populations Information & Resource Kit. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. This Health and Human Services publication reviews basic terms and then identifies and discusses the top health issues specific to each subset of the LGBT population. This publication also directs the reader to many additional important articles and Web-based resources.
- American Family Physician: Care of Special Populations. Editors have compiled a collection of resources including their own publications. Among many other special populations are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender patients.
- The Fenway Guide to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Health. Makadon HJ, Mayer KH, Potter J, Goldhammer H. 2nd ed. Philadelphia, PA: American College of Physicians; 2015. Written in conjunction with The Fenway Institute, this evidence-based review gives health care providers important information on such topics as “taking an LGBT-inclusive health history’ and ‘coming out, intimate partner violence, drug, alcohol, and tobacco use.”
Videos & Toolkits
- Integrating LGBT Health into Medical Education. Association of American Medical Colleges. This 12 minute video on the AAMC website features Kristen L. Eckstrand, the Chair of the AAMC Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and/or Disorders of Sexual Development-affected Patient Care Project Advisory Committee.
- Exploring Unconscious Bias in Academic Medicine. Association of American Medical Colleges. This serves as a starting place for considering how implicit bias might interfere with the selection of medical school or PA program candidates as well as with the provision of care to patients.
- The National LGBT Health Education Center. A program of the Fenway Institute, this education center provides access to various webinars and videos that are sponsored by the National LGBT Health Education Center.
Articles & Publications
Journal of Physician Assistant Education
- Exploring the sexual attitudes of physician assistant students: implications for obtaining a sexual history. 2012. Wolf C.
Other Journals
- Do contact and empathy mitigate bias against gay and lesbian people among heterosexual first-year medical students? A report from the Medical Student CHANGE Study. Academic Medicine. 2015. Burke SE, Dovidio JF, Przedworski JM, et al.
- Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender health disparities: executive summary of a policy position paper from the American College of Physicians. Annals of Internal Medicine. 2015. Daniel H, Butkus R, Health and Public Policy Committee of the American College of Physicians.
- WHO and the health of LGBT individuals. The Lancet. 2015. Duvivier RJ, Wiley E.
- Implicit bias against sexual minorities in medicine: cycles of professional influence and the role of the hidden curriculum. Academic Medicine. 2015. Fallin-Bennett K.
- Sexual and gender minority identity disclosure during undergraduate medical education: “in the closet” in medical school. Academic Medicine. 2015. Mansh M, White W, Gee-Tong L, et al.
- Minimizing health disparities among LGBT patients. Journal of the American Medical Association. 2015. Rubin R.
- Assessing undergraduate nursing students’ knowledge, attitudes, and cultural competence in caring for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender patients. Journal of Nursing Education. 2015. Strong KL, Folse VN.
Websites
- LGBT Health Resources. The American Medical Association. The AMA recognizes that LGBT-competent individuals can better meet the needs of patients and presents what they feel are the top resources and literature on the topic. This content is important for the practicing PA and for the PA educator.
- Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Health. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC connects social inequalities with health disparities and provides health information including helpful fact sheets specific to lesbians, gay men, transgender people and LGBT youth.
- Fenway Health. Fenway Health is a Federally Qualified Community Health Center that started in 1971 as a free clinic movement by students and is now serving its neighborhood, the LGBT community, people living with HIV/AIDS and the broader community. Fenway launched The Fenway Institute in 2001 to advance high quality, comprehensive healthcare, research, education and advocacy.
- The Human Rights Campaign: Working for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Equal Rights. HRC is the largest civil rights organization working to achieve equality for LGBT Americans.
CME Resources & Online Courses
- Health and Health Care for the LGBT Community: Identifying and Minimizing Disparities. Colorado Medical Society. Though this online teaching module is intended for practitioners in the state of Colorado, it is excellent and relevant for providers in other states as well. It is approved for 1 hour of AMA PRA Category 1 credit and very user-friendly.
- The National LGBT Health Education Center of the Fenway Institute. Educational programming through the Fenway Institute includes module based on-line CME, webinars, grand rounds and other special programs.
Evaluation & Curricular Assessment Tools
- Implementing Curricular and Institutional Climate Changes to Improve Health Care for Individuals Who are LGBT, Gender Nonconforming, or Born with DSD: A Resource for Medical Educators. Associate of American Medical Colleges. 2014. A 280 page resource for medical educators.