eQuality Toolkit receives honors for LGBT health education

The University of Louisville (UofL) shared its work in educating health professionals to provide quality health care to LGBTQ patients with faculty at Harvard Medical School in Boston in April. In New York, the university also received a national leadership award for workforce development for the same work on May 3. Earlier this year, UofL published The eQuality Toolkit, a clinical skills training manual to help others develop the specific clinical skills needed to provide high quality care to LGBTQ patients.

At the Seventh Annual National LGBT Health WorkforceConference, held in May in New York, UofL received the Organization LeadershipAward from Building the Next Generation of Academic Physicians (BNGAP), anorganization founded in 2008 to cultivate a more diverse workforce in academicmedicine. The award highlights commitment, scholarship and dedication to thedevelopment of a health workforce that is responsive to the unique healthissues and disparities of LGBT communities. Previous winners are Penn Medicineand the University of Rochester Medical Center.

A week prior, leaders from UofL’s eQuality program presentedGrand Rounds to faculty at the Harvard Medical School Academy on incorporatingtraining for the care of LGBTQ patients into the medical school curriculum. AmyHolthouser, M.D., senior associate dean for medical education; Susan Sawning,M.S.S.W., director of medical education research; and UofL School of Medicinealumni Rhiannon Ledgerwood, M.D., and Adam Neff, M.D., presented, “Lessons fromeQuality at University of Louisville: Successful collaborations for integratingsexual and gender minority health  intomedical education.”

David Hirsh, M.D., director of the Academy at HarvardMedical School, said the presentation from Holthouser and Sawning inspired theparticipants, who are planning to launch a similar program at Harvard.

Beginning in 2014, UofL served as the pilot program for thedevelopment of curriculum to incorporate competencies published by theAssociation of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) related to provision of carefor LGBT individuals and other sexual and gender minorities (SGM). Through theeQuality program, information related to care for SGM patients was embeddedthroughout the curriculum studied by all students in the UofL School ofMedicine.

Jennifer Potter, M.D., professor of medicine and advisorydean and director of William Bosworth Castle Society at Harvard Medical School,invited the UofL team to The Academy at Harvard Medical School, which isresponsible for professional development of faculty who teach in the MDprogram.

“You care about the fact that SGM people experience healthinequities,” Potter said of the UofL presenters. “You talk with your colleaguesand students about the fact that these inequities are unacceptable. Then you goone step further – you actually take action to address the inequities withsheer grace, humility, positivity, a sense of humor and brilliance ... and intrue collaboration with your local SGM community.”

The eQuality Toolkit, published with funding from the NationalInstitute of Health Care Management Foundation, is available to all healthprofessionals at no charge to enhance competency nationwide in caring for LGBTQpatients.