All patients deserve to be treated with dignity, as Laura Arrowsmith makes clear in her September 2017 Narrative Matters essay with regard to the challenges facing transgender people who seek medical care. One barrier involves a lack of training for health care providers. Even in the endocrinology field, a survey found that four in five providers never received formal training in transgender medicine.1 Survey respondents wanted resources to improve the care they offer to transgender people.
The Endocrine Society released a clinical practice guideline for treating gender dysphoria or gender incongruence2 in September as part of its efforts to help fill the knowledge gap among providers and to increase access to quality care.
Training health care providers can resolve only part of the issue. Many transgender people face other barriers, including lack of insurance coverage for needed services. Therefore, the Endocrine Society also issued a position statement3 as part of its work to educate federal and private insurers about the necessity of covering prescribed medical interventions for transgender people.
The Endocrine Society hopes that these and future initiatives will help improve transgender people’s access to care.
NOTES
- 1 . Transgender health in endocrinology: current status of endocrinology fellowship programs and practicing clinicians. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 207;102(4):1286–90. Crossref, Medline, Google Scholar
- 2 Endoctrine treatment of gender-dysphoric/gender-incongruent persons: an Endocrine Society clinical practice guideline. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. 2017 Sep 13. [Epub ahead of print]. Crossref, Medline, Google Scholar
- 3 Endocrine Society. Transgender health: an Endocrine Society position statement [Internet]. Washington (DC): The Society; 2017 Sep [cited
2017 Oct 6 ]. Available from: http://www.endocrine.org/advocacy/priorities-and-positions/transgender-health Google Scholar
