Duke Health Sciences Gay-Straight Alliance
This forum is for the LGBT community. Your experiences will be used to instruct curriculum, and provide awareness regarding LGBT disparities in health care. These posts will be shared with the Duke School of Medicine, School of Nursing, and peer institutions nation wide!
We want to hear from you!
We have shared our stories with you, please feel free to do the same in the forum below! Go to "Channels" and Select "LGBT Health Care Experiences". You dont' have to be a member to post, just select: "Login and Post" and hit "Join" to enter the discussion!
What health care experiences have you encountered as an LGBT individual; good or bad?
or
What unique experiences have you had as a health care provider when treating members of the LGBT community?
Our Stories:
The Duke Doctor of Physical Therapy Gay-Straight Alliance was formed in 2012. This group was created after a revelation that not all graduate and professional level students have had the foundation of experience and education necessary to demonstrate proficiency in cultural competence. It was also derived from the necessity to ensure that awareness and insight regarding cultural competence be provided to those in charge of leading professional development.
This group was precipitated from various compounding incidents and catalyzed by a sequence of inadvertent and innocuously intentioned mistakes. The most notable experiences were the flippant usage of pejorative and derogatory terms associated with LGBT individuals during the initial weeks of school. General consensus seemed divided as to whether this type of language was acceptable; affirming the need for a systemic look at education regarding socially sensitive issues in the health care environment.
Education about LGBT issues is not the responsibility of one or two individuals. It impacts everyone. Students, faculty, and staff, all share the responsibility of learning how to interact appropriately, and how to properly handle situations should they arise.
The Duke DPT GSA was formed from the need to create awareness. Everyone holds the responsibility for ensuring a safe and comfortable environment. The DPT GSA recognizes the necessity for providing a foundation of understanding and education about these issues. We hope to empower everyone to take responsibility and promote awareness. As a group we recognize that without this foundation people will make mistakes no matter how well intentioned they are.
Duke Med GSA's derivation as a group emerged from the need to shed light on the values of the LGBTQ community. We do this within both the patients we see and the clinicians we work with on a daily basis. The curiosity expressed to us about the LGBTQ community from both clinicians and students alike gave us an even greater motivation to help educate.
As LGBTQ-identified students entering the medical profession, we felt strongly about needing a safe space for other LGBTQA students, where they could be free to express themselves and feel supported in an environment that is not always LGBTQA-affirming. Creating the DukeMed GSA allowed us to have this space, and as the mission of our organization evolved over time, we created secondary goals of outreach to the rest of our medical student and hospital staff community. We also began engaging in political activism. We have now reached a place as an organization where we can fulfill a mission of supporting our LGBTQA community, while also working to ensure the next generation of physicians and our community as a whole are given opportunities to become aware of the many health needs of the LGBTQ community.
