Medical Anthro
I was reading this paper for class today, it was a study done by some medical anthropologists in Canada. They interviewed doctors and a variety of LGBTQ patients in order to see where the divide could be between these two groups to get the LGBTQ community better quality of care. And the three most interesting takeaways from it for me were:
a, professional distance and neutrality reads as exclusion to LGBTQ people (in specific, lesbians.). In other words, it is better to ask the role of the woman standing at the bedside than to assume she is a friend or to not ask at all. Neutrality reads as assumption of non-LGBTQ status and an exclusion of their specific medical needs.
b, the responsibility for disclosing their LGBTQ status falls too heavily on the patient, but...
c, the patients were ok with this if the environment they were in made them feel safe about disclosing. The women interviewed placed a higher value on a doctor’s welcoming personality and creation of a safe environment even if that meant that the doctor admitted that they didn’t know something and needed to do more research. In fact, among the respondents interviewed, admission of ignorance and willingness to learn felt like engagement and care for their status as lesbians or trans.
Anyway it was an interesting paper and there’s a lot more in it than this, and if anyone wants to read it I can give you the info. What really struck me here is how easy it is to signal to an LGBTQ patient that they are in an environment that is safe. Even reconsidering the language of the intake form (IE, asking for preferred gender rather than only having m/f) or having gender neutral bathrooms can make a big difference.
