Making Office Visits Positive for Transgender Patients

Concerns over how they might be treated are so severe for some transgender patients that they decline to get medical care on a regular basis. While the consequences of that for the patient are self-evident, there is also pressure on the urgent care provider to 1) get to the root of whatever the patient’s complaint is, understanding that it may have gone unaddressed longer than might be expected and 2) to interact with the patient in a way the patient will perceive as respectful and sensitive. Even though the latter would be the default demeanor of most providers, a report just published in JAMA Internal Medicine reveals that “a lack of training may mean some [providers] fail to handle interactions with transgender patients in a culturally sensitive manner.” The authors looked at 80 studies reflecting the care of 1.4 million adults in the United States whose gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth. One example: Around 33% of transgender people surveyed by the National Center for Transgender Equality in 2015 reported having at least one “negative experience” with a healthcare provider, ranging from what the patient perceived as verbal harassment to outright refusal to treat the patient. Roughly 25% said they did not see a physician in the previous year due to concerns that they would not be treated well. Among the recommendations are to ask the patient what name they prefer to go by (as opposed to asking for their “real name”) and the sex they were assigned at birth (not their “biological” or “genetic” gender). To read more about this topic from an urgent care perspective, read Making Your Urgent Care Center Welcoming For LGBTQ Patients in the JUCM archives.