August 06, 2012 - Ending Health Disparities Among LGBT People: A Step in the Right Direction

The Bay Area Reporter recently shared news of a fresh collaboration between the Pacific Center (the oldest LGBTQ center in the San Francisco Bay area) and the Suitcase Clinic (a humanitarian student organization based at the University of California, Berkeley).

Called the LGBTQI Suitcase Clinic, this new collaboration is a free, bi-weekly drop-in clinic that provides culturally competent medical care for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, and Intersex (LGBTQI) people—and two Schweitzer Fellows are the driving force behind it:

Leslie Ewing, executive director of the Pacific Center, said that the effort has been spearheaded by second-year UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program students Katharine Burmaster and Nicholas Orozco, in response to the health disparities impacting the local queer community and the lack of medical education around LGBTQI health needs.

“Lack of trust towards providers is a major barrier to providing members of the LGBTQI community with the critical health services they need,” Burmaster says. “Providers’ lack of understanding, awareness, and support around LGBTQ issues exacerbates this divide, and current medical education frameworks are not teaching future clinicians the skills they need to serve the LGBTQI community. Nick and I want to try to change that model.”

Click here to read the rest of this story on ASF's blog.

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