LBGT concerns about seeing healthcare professional

This will be my third year volunteering to sit on a LGBT diversity panel to meet first-year med students at University of Nebraska Medical Center ^_^



We are supposed to talk about ourselves, but also discuss our LGBT concerns when we see a healthcare professional. This is a really low-pressure event, so we aren't required to speak as if we're teaching a classroom, but I'd really like to provide an informed perspective and would love some brainstorming input from the forum.



My thoughts are:

• Respectful treatment by staff. Particularly with trans people, using their preferred name and pronoun; not discussing a patients sexual habits unless they are diagnostically relevant; avoiding stereotypical assumptions about patient (e.g. that a trans person works in the sex trade, that a bisexual person is promiscuous, that a gay man has HIV).


• Access to treatment. Example: A doctor fails to disclose the results of a cancer screening to his patient, then fails to advise the patient on treatment options. The patient learned about their cancer diagnosis entirely by accident, after the therapeutic window for chemotheraphy.(source).


• Being knowledgeable about LGBT people's needs. Example: some 50% of LGBT people, particularly T's, indicate that the have to teach their doctors about lgbt issues; being aware that transmen can develop cervical cancers; that transwomen can have prostate problems; being knowledgable about the interactions of HRT medication; that lesbians need pap smears.

I feel like there should be a lot more to discuss here.



Could anyone else be able to provide input?

via JREF Forum http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=267367&goto=newpost