Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons face a score of health disparities, and these disparities were identified in 2007 by the Association of American Medical Colleges to be an important area of education for medical students. But how are medical schools doing with this aim?
To find out, Dr. Juno Obedin-Maliver, MD, MPH, the lead investigator and founder of the LGBT Medical Education Research Group at Stanford, surveyed the deans of allopathic and osteopathic medical schools across the U.S. and Canada. The results were published in this month’s Journal of the American Medical Association.
Here’s the rundown. Out of the 176 deans surveyed, 150 responded, and 132 completed the survey. The median number of self-reported hours spent on LGBT health was five; the mean was seven with a standard deviation of six-and-one-half.
Most of the LGBT content was found during the preclinical years, like training students to ask, “With men, women or both?” during the sexual history, or teaching the difference between sexual behavior and sexual identity.
But out of a list of 16 LGBT health topics, 83 schools reported covering half, and 11 schools claimed to cover all of them.
Forty-four schools reported no instruction during clinical years.
These results are mixed at best. An average of seven hours may seem like a sizeable amount of time for LGBT health, but the number of hours and breadth of topics varied widely from school to school.
Also, the lack of hours during the clinical years lays bare a significant gap when students could be exposed to more clinically focused experiences with LGBT patients and LGBT cases.
There is still room for optimism. A high response rate means that deans are interested in this issue, and many are acknowledging the inadequacy. About half of the deans rated the quality of their coverage as “fair,” while a quarter said “poor” or “very poor.”
