Episode 13, Part 3: LGTBQI Health-related Issues

Show Notes for Episode Thirteen of seX & whY: LGTBQI Health-related Issues Part 3

How best to support students and colleagues in the LGBTQ community

This is a very special podcast and I want to deeply thank Shana Zucker, Ellie Ragone and Mike Gisondi for sharing their very personal experiences.

Host: Jeannette Wolfe
Guests:

Shana Zucker, MS

Shana is a rising 4^th year medical student at Tulane in the MD/PhD program
When she was a first-year medical student at Tulane she helped to create The Queericulum, an educational program geared at helping medical students become more culturally competent surrounding LGTBQ health related issues and patient interactions
Since its creation, it has now become a mandatory course for all first-year Tulane medical students and she is currently working to expand the program to other medical schools
In addition, she and Mike are creating (with another MD/PhD student at Stanford) an online educational program to help medical educators teach medical students about LGTBQ health
Here is Shana’s talk at Feminem’s Fix conference in NYC

Ellie Ragone DO

Is a first-year emergency medical resident at UMMS-Baystate
Ellie is a transwoman and has graciously shared her personal experiences about transitioning as a medical student
One of her largest concerns about transitioning was being able to successfully identify a primary care provider who was both competent and comfortable with LGTBQ patients and their health-related needs

Michael Gisondi

Vice chair of education at the Dept of EM at Stanford
Mike shares how his identity formation was actually quite different at different points of his own life
He reflects on the generational differences of LGBTQ physicians

Tips offered by the group

If you have a trans colleague and you misgender them, besides apologizing in real-time consider sending them an email or text later on to let them know you have reflected upon the mistake and appreciate the challenges they are routinely facing and that you want to support them.
When you are looking at a program or job, be authentic and find the program who accepts you for who you are versus trying to be the image of the person you think the program wants.
Let medical students and residents lead. They often are much more on point about what does and doesn’t work than most senior educators

Accountability buddy article

Special thanks to Doug Deems who helped me edit this podcast.