HealthDay News — According to a study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, more education related to transgender health is needed for endocrinologists.
Caroline Davidge-Pitts, MBBCh, from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and colleagues developed and administered a web-based anonymous survey to 104 endocrinology fellowship program directors (PDs) and to 6992 US practicing clinician members of the Endocrine Society.
Responses were obtained from 54 PDs and 411 practicing clinicians.
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The researchers found that according to the PDs, 72.2% of programs provided teaching on transgender health topics; 93.8% indicated that fellowship training in this area is important.
Lack of faculty interest or experience was a barrier to provision of education. Online training modules for trainees and faculty were among the most desired strategies to increase transgender-specific content.
Almost 80% of the clinicians had treated a transgender patient, but 80.6% reported never having received training on transgender patient care.
Clinicians were very or somewhat confident in terms of definitions, taking a history and prescribing hormones (77.1, 63.3, and 64.8%, respectively), but they reported low confidence outside the hormonal realm. Online training modules and presentation of transgender topics at meetings were the most requested methods of education.
“Confidence and competence in transgender health needs to increase among endocrinologists,” the authors write.
Reference
Davidge-Pitts C, et al. “Transgender Health in Endocrinology: Current Status of Endocrinology Fellowship Programs and Practicing Clinicians.” Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. 2017. doi: 10.1210/jc.2016-3007. [Epub ahead of print]
