Academic Medicine Open Forum

On June 15, in a remarkable and sweeping decision, Blostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, the Supreme Court of the United States determined that Title VII protections under the 1964 Civil Rights Act protect lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) citizens. By stating that "...it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex," the Supreme Court paved the way for non-discrimination protections to explicitly include LGBTQ persons. The impact of this ruling cannot be understated and is far reaching, particularly at a time of great divisiveness in our country.

I hope this win is a step forward in addressing the many forms of discrimination that LGBTQ people face in the workplace setting, particularly in our professions. For our LGBTQ patients, they have and continue to face disturbing health disparities, such as higher rates of hypertension among gay and bisexual men, arthritis and heart disease among lesbian and bisexual women, and higher suicide rates among LGBTQ youth.

I and others have long urged our colleagues in academic medicine to fully recognize and act on the need to train future physicians to care for these woefully underserved and often misunderstood populations. In addition to better curriculum design, we need to be creating more welcoming learning environments for LGBTQ students, faculty, and patients in order to create more competent and compassionate physicians.

What is your institution doing to improve physician training to care for LGBTQ patients, families, communities?  I'd love to hear about it!

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Carl Streed Jr MD MPH FACP
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Boston University School of Medicine
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Thanks for raising this, Carl! I share your sentiments, and hope that this win will catalyze more health equity solutions for the LGBTQ community.

AAMC recently released a statement on the final rule, and the Association also commented on the proposed rule change late last year. 

AAMC's Collaborative for Health Equity: Act, Research, Generate Evidence (CHARGE) provides a forum to continue these conversations and rally around this work. One of the teams selected from our first ever Health Equity Call for Research (applications for the 2nd edition are currently open) is conducting research on 'Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Disparities and Trends in Mental Health and Health
Care Access and Experiences in the United States', where they also explore the impact of intersectionality on access to quality health care for this population. 

If you're interested, they presented their preliminary findings in April during our AAMC CHARGE Virtual Research Symposium! @Jessica Fish , the team lead, may also have some more specific insight into the question you've posed!​​​

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Olufunmilayo Makinde, MPH, CHES
Health Equity Research Analyst
Association of American Medical Colleges
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Original Message:
Sent: 06-16-2020 08:50
From: Carl Streed Jr
Subject: SCOTUS & LGBTQ

On June 15, in a remarkable and sweeping decision, Blostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, the Supreme Court of the United States determined that Title VII protections under the 1964 Civil Rights Act protect lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) citizens. By stating that "...it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex," the Supreme Court paved the way for non-discrimination protections to explicitly include LGBTQ persons. The impact of this ruling cannot be understated and is far reaching, particularly at a time of great divisiveness in our country.

I hope this win is a step forward in addressing the many forms of discrimination that LGBTQ people face in the workplace setting, particularly in our professions. For our LGBTQ patients, they have and continue to face disturbing health disparities, such as higher rates of hypertension among gay and bisexual men, arthritis and heart disease among lesbian and bisexual women, and higher suicide rates among LGBTQ youth.

I and others have long urged our colleagues in academic medicine to fully recognize and act on the need to train future physicians to care for these woefully underserved and often misunderstood populations. In addition to better curriculum design, we need to be creating more welcoming learning environments for LGBTQ students, faculty, and patients in order to create more competent and compassionate physicians.

What is your institution doing to improve physician training to care for LGBTQ patients, families, communities?  I'd love to hear about it!

------------------------------
Carl Streed Jr MD MPH FACP
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Boston University School of Medicine
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