The training program aiming at providing the Israel LGBTQ+ Medical Society medical education in comfortably treating Trans patients has been launched for the first time. The Transgender Care Training Program for Family Physicians would take place in Mid June, year 2024 and will focus on the enhancement of healthcare delivery to the TG population.
Organizers and Support:
The drive was coordinated by Dr. Roy Zucker, the chairman of the Israel LGBTQ+ Medical Society and Dr. Shimrit Arbel, head of the facial gender confirmation surgery clinic at Tel Aviv Medical Centre. The program did get its support from the Jewish LGBTQ Donor Network, the Israel Medical Association, the Tel Aviv Medical Center, as well as the Gila Project which a non-profit organization focused on health-care advocacy for the trans-community.
Participants and Selection:
Permission was sought and received from the directors of the concerned MOHs and from the HMOs where the 25 family physicians out of the 80 applicants were practising. Physicians accompanied to PPI’s were from peripheral regions and various communities like the Arab community in Jaffa as well as the ultra orthodox Jewish community of Jerusalem where options for trans-friendly physicians are scarce.
Training Focus:
Some of the discussed topics were mental disorders, use of hormones before and after surgery, gender identity disorders and surgeries. First, Dr. Joshua Safer from Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York delivered a workshop on hormonal therapy; enabling primary care doctors managing hormone therapies and cutting down waiting times for escorts patient to months.
Impact and Future Goals:
The program would enable primary care physicians acquire these competencies and hence reduce waiting list for hormone therapy appointments by a minimum of six months. Also, the course is to decide on the creation of a task force that will help to refine the healthcare treatment of the minority, increasing the availability of medical services throughout the country.
The blessing of this trend-setting mission has been the provision of a humane and sensitive qualitative care to Transgendered people in Israel.