Tufts med school lgbtq health
The Tufts Biomedical Lgbtq+ Alliance is an organization dedicated to connecting and strengthening the lesbian, lgbtq+, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) society of students and professionals at the Tufts University Health Sciences Campus in downtown Boston, MA and at the Brighton Campus in Portland, ME. We advocate for, assist, and celebrate the gender and sexual minority (GSM) group on both campuses.
We represent students at the Medical, Dental, Friedman, PHPD, and Graduate schools as well as faculty, staff, and residents at Tufts Medical Center/Maine Medical Center. Our activities range from social gatherings to forums and volunteer opportunities.
Many of our meetings and events are not exclusive to the queer community – we welcome everyone at Tufts to become members and allies, as we work to teach, advocate and help each other.
Goals
We struggle to:
- Provide a voice for the lgbtq+ community at the Tufts University Boston and Portland Campuses.
- Foster a strong social and professional network of LGBTQ+ students and professionals.
- Educate about the special needs of the GSM community as patients and as providers.
- Coordinate with groups at other in
A Groundbreaking Study on LGBTQ+ Health Was Just the Start
Most health studies don’t collect facts on sexual orientation and gender identity, said physician Mitchell Lunn, A04. That means that members of sexual and gender minorities are missing out on key information that could improve their health.
“There’s this invisibility of the LGBTQ+ community in a lot of the current research,” Lunn, an associate professor of medicine and of epidemiology and population health at Stanford University School of Medicine, told a Tufts audience. “If we look at a study of 10,000 people with diabetes, guaranteed there are LGBTQ+ people in that study. Are they visible in the results? Absolutely not.” And that makes it hard to see if something in their lives may or may not have contributed to the condition existence studied.
Lunn is the co-director of the first long-term national health study of LGBTQ+ people, named The PRIDE Study, or Population Research in Identity and Disparities for Equality. He also co-directs PRIDEnet, a network of LGBTQ+ individuals and organizations helping to decide how health study is conducted.
On Protest 7, he was presented with the 2023 Lyon & Bendheim Citize
Dr. Mitchell Lunn receives Lyon and Bendheim Citizenship Award for LGBTQ+ advocacy in medicine
Mitchell Lunn (LA’04), an associate professor of nephrology, epidemiology and population health at Stanford University School of Medicine, received Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life’s 2023 Lyon and Bendheim Citizenship Award in Barnum Hall on March 7 for his work in representing sexual and gender minority populations in healthcare.
Following the presentation of the award by Dayna Cunningham, dean of Tisch College, Lunn spoke about his career and accomplishments with Jennifer Greer-Morrisey, the civic animation program manager for Tufts’ graduate health sciences schools.
Lunn spoke about the healthcare disparities within Homosexual and sexual and gender minority populations. He attributed these inequalities to essential studies and surveys, including the U.S. census, neglecting to ask participants about their sexual orientation and gender identity.
“If we look at a study of 10,000 people with diabetes, [it is] guaranteed there are LGBTQ+ people in that study,” he said. “Are they visible in the results? Absolutely not. And so it makes it really, really hard to start looking at some of
Education Columns
Teaching About Transgender Concern in the Third-Year Family Medicine Clerkship
By Joshua St. Louis, MD, MPH, AAHIVS, Greater Lawrence Family Health Center Program, Lawrence, MA; and Amy L. Lee, MD; Tufts University Educational facility of Medicine, Department of Family Medicine, Boston, MA
Introduction
Curricular teaching on the health and primary care of LGBTQ patients is frequently neglected in medical university education, with some medical schools providing no order on the subject. A policy document by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) in 2014 provided guidelines on integration of LGBTQ health into medical school education.1 However, few medical schools hold made significant progress. The same document found that many existing LGBTQ health curricula place an untoward focus on sexual health while often neglecting prevalent primary care concerns. This focus subconsciously teaches medical students to consider gender identity and sexual orientation only when patients introduce with concerns related to sexual health. Teaching about the care of these patients in a more holistic primary care-focused fashion can help to dodge such an outcome. With this in
A Call for LGBTQ Content in Graduate Medical Education Program Requirements A well-developed body of literature demonstrates that lesbian, same-sex attracted, bisexual, transgender, and lgbtq+ (LGBTQ) individuals experience poorer health outcomes and describe worse health care experiences than straight/cisgender individuals. Many reforms since 2010 contain addressed the LGBTQ-related knowledge of future health nurture professionals at the undergraduate medical education (UME) level; however, reforms at the graduate medical education (GME) level are lagging, and new literature suggests that didactic education at the UME level is not enough to prepare future physicians to properly and compassionately care for LGBTQ patients. Recently, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) implemented a major revision of its Common Program Requirements that requires residents to display, as a competence, respect and responsiveness to diverse populations. Given these revisions and the ongoing shortcoming of many GME teaching programs to adequately ready future physicians to concern for LGBTQ patients, the authors argue that now is the time for the ACGME to evolve and implement LGBTQ health–rel