Rainbow Health Ontario has created an excellent resource for healthcare providers and trainees with regards to providing gender-affirming care. Initially launched in 2016, the Trans Primary Care Guide was a recently updated along with the 4th edition of the primary care guidelines from Sherbourne Health Clinic in Toronto, a leading provider 2SLGBTQ+ care.
Does that include an overview of issues in transgender health including terminology and language, end discuss some of the social issues impacting access to care for trans people. Then it takes a deeper dive into the assessment for and provision of hormone replacement therapy.
What I find most useful for Learners and patience are the interactive images that help identify the reversible and non-reversible changes patience can anticipate as well as their time frames.
Send a link to this guide to your medical students and residents to use as a learning module before they attend your clinic as we do at ours.
Share this resource with your patience so that they can go back and review the interactive images and answer their own questions about physiologic changes and time frames.
While we’re talking about Rainbow Health Ontario’s great resources, I also recommend checking out these Surgical Summary documents that cover a wide range of gender-affirming surgeries and procedures. Although the title suggest that they are written for healthcare providers, I find patience appreciate them as well.
I will commonly provide one two patients before they come to see me for a surgical readiness assessment so they come prepared with questions and even a basic understanding of the risks to the procedures. I recommend patient to review these some rays before they see the surgeon as well as a demonstration of their knowledge and ability to provide informed consent.
