LGBTQI health is currently inadequately maintained by the Australian Health Care System.

We as a community, who experience specific health issues, require specific and supportive health services. Therefore, we need knowledgeable and respectful Health Care Professionals who are prepared to treat our community. It then follows that Students of Medicine should have LGBTQI inclusive training.

I am a Student Doctor at the University of Western Australia. I have written a letter to the Course Director of the MD at UWA which addresses the absence of LGBTQI health related material in the course and suggests small amendments to produce a more inclusive curriculum.

Currently, only men who have sex with men who happen to contract STI’s are mentioned in the MD. This leaves all other elements of the LGBTQI communities’ health unattended. Such a lack of inclusive health services has already had deadly consequences. Same-sex attracted people are 14 times more likely to attempt suicide than heterosexuals, and half of Transgendered people have attempted to end their own lives.

We need your help. Sign this petition to encourage a greater emphasis on LGBTQI inclusive training within the MD at UWA through the submission of this letter (see below) to the Course Director.

 

 

 

 

 

LETTER: My name is Thomas Allan, I am a Student Doctor in my second year at the University of Western Australia. Importantly, I am also same-sex attracted as well as gender queer and I am writing to address what I feel are gaps in the MD course content where my community should be mentioned. LGBTQI people are often vulnerable members of our society, susceptible to a range of specific, nuanced, and potentially life threatening medical issues and we are in dire need of as many educated and respectful healthcare professionals as can be made available. My hope is that in your position as Course Director, you may be able to recommend, or instigate changes in the MD course that could have life saving ramifications for current and future generations of LGBT and Queer people, that the Alumni of UWA will one day treat. LGBTQI health is of great personal importance to me, and I am of the firm belief that it should be considered as important by those of us who aspire to maintain the health of our community, as Doctors.

I would like to make it clear that I do not bring these absences in our course material to attention lightly, or simply because the issues discussed herein affect me personally. It is well documented that the health of same-sex attracted and gender diverse individuals is in many ways diminished when compared to that of their heterosexual and cisgendered counterparts. Our community suffers disproportionately from poor mental health, specific sexual health problems, we can require specialised surgery to treat dysphoria that has crippling psychological repercussions, and we are more susceptible to numerous conditions associated with the lower socioeconomic position we are more likely to occupy.

Despite these needs, so far in the MD course the LGBTQI community has been mentioned a handful of times, and these occasional mentions actually only address “MSM,” leaving Lesbians, Transgender people, female Bisexuals, Intersex people, and the rest of the broadly diverse Queer population and their needs unattended. It also means that we are only mentioned in the context of sexually transmitted infections; not only an inadequate attempt to discuss LGBTQI health, but a stigmatising one, which perpetuates age-old misunderstandings of how queerness and HIV and other STI’s are linked.

In all of the time dedicated to discussing mental health in the MD, the fact that 50 per cent of Transgendered people in Australia attempt suicide, is left unmentioned. Conversely, the course mentions, for example, that cisgendered men are more likely to commit suicide than cisgendered women, but neither of these groups approach the risk that the Transgendered community experiences. This begs the question, why is it that one of the most at risk populations for suicide is not mentioned in the MD whilst others are? Furthermore, same-sex attracted people are 14 times more likely than heterosexuals to self harm, to contemplate suicide and to attempt it and are also not included in our course material in this context. Intersex individuals have on average the same psychopathological profile as victims of domestic violence, and again, are absent from the curriculum. These discrepancies need to be known to us as future health professionals, and I don’t believe it should be the responsibility of the student to discover, in their own time, the profound and life threatening disparity in mental health that LGBTQI people are endangered by.

This letter is a humble request that the health of my community be taken seriously in a way that is reflected in the material of the MD. The letter has also been signed by [insert number] people, medical students and members of the community more broadly. This is the result of extensive discussion regarding the topic of LGBTQI inclusion in the MD with fellow Student Doctors, all of whom agree with the sentiments described. I, and the signatories contained herein, implore you to consider the ramifications of omitting us from the Medical course in every relevant context beside sexually transmitted infections, and what this means in terms of how effectively UWA graduated Doctors will be able to treat the LGBTQI community. Simple changes to our curriculum could make enormous changes to people’s lives.

Thank you for your time,

Sincerely,

 

Thomas