Counting Your LGBT Patients

As the year begins, we encourage you all to do everything possible to put LGBT health at the front and center of healthcare reform, particularly when developing proposals at the federal and state levels.  One simple, but key LGBT health strategy we plan to highlight is helping clinicians identify LGBT individuals in their practice by taking informed and non-judgmental histories. It's basic, but also sits at the core of improving the health of our community. Being out to your doctor is good for your health!
 
To that end, we feel that educating our colleagues on multiple LBGT health issues is critically important.  Our hope is that the Learning Modules we have been putting on The Fenway Institute's website will help move us toward this goal.  To help us make the Modules as learning-rich as possible, we want to hear your feedback about the three modules that are now posted.  Send your thoughts to professionaleducation@fenwayhealth.org.  Four new modules on adolescents and young adults, LGBT families, older adults, and trans/gender affirming health are on the way soon.
 
We are also pleased to announce two new initiatives this year:
 
The Fenway Institute-American Medical Association LGBT Grand Rounds Program will begin this month with generous grants from Aetna and Gilead.  Because it is a pilot program, we will be developing a Grand Rounds presentation and then testing it at up to seven schools around the country. Our hope is to begin an effort that many of you can adapt for use in your area.
 
The Fenway Institute will also soon initiate a Consumer Health Information section on the The Fenway Institute's website with support from Jamie Marks (founder of thebody.com) and Pfizer. We will be developing consumer education materials for health professionals to give to their patients and for consumers to access online.  This content will also be syndicated to a variety of third-party web sites.
 
Our greatest hope this year is that we continue to evolve a community of educators and clinicians interested in LGBT health who can have a rich and helpful dialogue that moves our message throughout the healthcare community. If you want to join our online professional working group on LGBT health education, send an email to professionaleducation@fenwayhealth.org with "working group" in the subject line.  If you're already a member, send an email to lgbthealtheducation@discussthis.com to update us on what you're doing.  We look forward to hearing from you!