The Evolving Role of Pharmacists in Transgender Health Care

Abstract

Pharmacists are increasingly part of a multifaceted team providing health care to members of the often marginalized transgender (TG) community. Some pharmacists, however, may feel unprepared to care for and interact with TG individuals. By providing comprehensive, respectful, and gender-affirming support, improving physical pharmacy environments with policies and procedures, pharmacists can be trustworthy providers for TG patients. This review focuses primarily on the health issues of TG persons and the pharmacist's role in promoting health, identifying barriers to health care, and providing health care resources for TG persons. The evolution of psychiatric diagnostic criteria, access to health care, and inclusion of TG, lesbian, gay, and bisexual topics in the educational curriculum are presented. Cultural competency and diversity training that addresses gender identity and sexual orientation issues should be important interdisciplinary and interprofessional activities for all health care professional education programs. Pharmacists play a key role in the health care needs of TG persons that include appropriate laboratory monitoring, complex pharmacotherapeutic challenges, and providing unbiased gender-affirming interactions. The pharmacy's physical environment, staff training, and policies and procedures can offer unique services to TG persons.

Strategies for inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA+) education throughout pharmacy school curricula

“…These commentaries and reviews identify the need for integration of instruction on LGBTQIA+ health into pharmacy school curricula, but the focus was on pharmacists' self-education after graduation. [9][10][11][12] The District of Columbia's passage of the LGBTQ Cultural Competency Continuing Education Amendment Act of 2016 for all health occupations requires two continuing education requirements focusing on cultural competency or specialized clinical training for the LGBTQIA+ population. 13 Similarly, the American Pharmacists Association Academy of Student Pharmacists' (APhA-ASP) adopted a resolution during their 2018 policy process for "inclusion of education on topics related to diverse gender and sexual identities in the curriculum of schools and colleges of pharmacy".…”

Pharmacists’ acceptability of a men’s mental health promotion program using the Theoretical Framework of Acceptability

“…The concern for the gendered signage brought forward important points regarding program designs and implementation and also the preparedness of pharmacists to engage with diverse groups in pharmacy practice. There has been more work in recent years to provide education to pharmacists for transgender and gender diverse individuals [36],[37]. This is especially important for our research area given the experience of mental illness and addictions, including suicide, by transgender and gender diverse people [37],[38].…”

“…There has been more work in recent years to provide education to pharmacists for transgender and gender diverse individuals [36],[37]. This is especially important for our research area given the experience of mental illness and addictions, including suicide, by transgender and gender diverse people [37],[38]. Because of these experiences and feedback from participants, it provides us with an opportunity to explore various mechanisms to optimize program designs in the future.…”

Advanced pharmacy practice experiences (APPE) in academia as strategy to fill the gap on transgender health

“…3 The latter study correlates with national findings and suggest that, rather than mainly focusing on pharmacotherapy and clinical considerations, incorporating learning experiences with psychosocial emphasis may reduce the insensitivity and enhance cultural competence during provision of care. 4,5 Moreover, educational efforts should foster empathy trainings that would allow the student to treat the transgender patient as a person and not as a medical condition. 6 Future strategies may benefit from formats beyond the lecture style or panel discussion.…”

“…5 For example, pharmacy schools may coordinate Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences (APPE) in academia where the student can address clinical and psychosocial aspects by engaging on activities such as research, literature review, design and implementation of educational initiatives like lectures, informational material and audio-visual production. 4 A selective academia rotation offers the student an opportunity to work with pharmacy and non-pharmacy faculty members with expertise on transgender health. Furthermore, pharmacy schools can create agreements with LGBTQIA+ specialized clinics to provide the student with utmost experiences in ambulatory care settings.…”