Week 1: Project Kick-Off, Research, Brainstorm, Framing
The session this week started off with us getting a formal introduction to our final project for the semester. Three people representing NYU Langone Health came over and introduced the topic and began by giving us a run-through of What it is that they do at NYU Langone Health and the FuturePractise labs to be specific. They shared very interesting insights and information about the different jobs and projects they were tackling at the time. After this, they proceeded to give us the problem statement. The problem statement read:
How might NYULH improve its patient experience to be more inclusive, supportive, and positive for people who are transgender, nonbinary, and genderqueer.
They gave us lots of information on where NYU Langone Health currently stands on the issue. After this, we had another guest speaker, Max Masure. We had a workshop that was very informative and eye-opening. Being born and raised in the Middle East, conversations around the LGBTQ+ population and their struggles and experiences are not entertained and generally not addressed at all. To hear Max talk about his experiences and how open he was to answering all our questions. was very enlightening.
After this, we regrouped as a team and started off by planning our strategy for the week. We organized our Trello and decided on how we can get more information on Trans experiences and how we can get more insights and get more involved with the community. We divided tasks like Research (articles, scholarly journals, etc.), market research on specific products and experiences designed for the LGBTQ+, reaching out to LGBTQ+ communities, etc.
During the week I went through a wave of emotions while conducting my own research to educate myself more on this topic. I was really embarrassed with myself when I realized how novel the topic of trans patients' experiences especially in the context of health care is to me. I was very ashamed of how much less thought or attention I had previously paid to this problem. While watching many interviews and conversations on different experiences Trans people have had to go through just to get access to basic treatment, the only thought running through my head was “Why is this still an issue in 2021?”. Aren't we past the insensitivity and just absurd amounts of callousness towards people of the LGBTQ+ community? Is it really this hard to just be accepting and respectful to others? It was very difficult for me to actually internalize what I was reading.
After this, I started annotating different scholarly articles on the topic. Most scholarly articles seemed to strongly agree on the following:
- stigma and discrimination within biomedicine and health impact trans people desire to seek care
- Trans people have historically shown higher rates of depression, anxiety, HIV-positive rates, mood disorders, suicidal thoughts, etc. They also face higher rates of Substance abuse, verbal and psychological violence
- Trans patients report a lack of clinicians and experts in transgender medicine. This topic is not taught in the conventional medical curriculum
- Other challenges they face are: financial, mental health
- surveys and studies often cannot give much info because of lack of samples and population-based representative samples (Data limitations)
- Despite these data limitations, there is enough info informing about biological, behavioral, social, and structural contextual factors contributing to these health issues
- Interesting thought mentioned by one of the articles was gender affirmation as a public health framework and the possibility of medical organizations working closely with transgender communities to better serve them.
- A shocking revelation was that in public health research, the trans population is categorized based on sex assigned at birth due to health indicators like prostate health, etc.
- Gaps in mental health studies include statistics and data on eating disorders, body dysmorphia, etc. within the LGBTQ+ community.
- By definition, gender affirmation is about trans people being socially accepted. It's kinda sad that despite going through all kinds of treatments THIS is not happening.
- Almost no research was done on the general health of the trans population(like mortality rate, cancer stats, etc.)
During the week, we had the pleasure of having a very candid and valuable conversation with Juli Grey-Owens(She/Her/Hers) who identifies herself as a transgender woman and has been a strong advocate within the Transgender Community for over 18 years. Through the conversation, we were able to get a more personal account of the trans experience. Some of the takeaways from this conversation were:
- Many trans people have been turned away and blatantly denied treatment on the basis of the clinician not having any experience with trans patients.
- An alarming number of transgender patients don't seek out healthcare immediately for treatable issues until it becomes a more serious problem and when they are left with no other choice
- There have been accounts of various forms of inappropriate behavior at hospitals like taunting, breach of confidentiality, not respecting name/pronouns, long waiting times, non-inclusive bathrooms, very small coverage of healthcare plans, etc.
- When asked about what such organizations can do to become more inclusive, Juli mentioned numerous ways to achieve this. Some of these include: posting non-discrimination policy, well-structured protocols for reporting and responding to discrimination, hiring gender-expansive people, making the environment more welcoming by including symbols and flags, forms that use gender-neutral terms, etc. A very interesting suggestion Juli suggested was the use of the two-set approach: What were you assigned at birth? How do you describe yourself now? It is also important to apologize and move forward when a mistake has been made when interacting.
We hope to have a few more candid conversations with people who are strong advocates and active members of the trans community and population. The following week will hopefully bring about more insights that can help us narrow down our scope and identify the exact problem and section of the population we want to help.
