Effectiveness of an educational intervention to improve medical student comfort and familiarity with providing gender-affirming hormone therapy

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT) is a key component in the primary care of transgender and gendernonconforming (TGNC) people. However, physicians are hesitant to initiate GAHT, citing a lack of knowledge. We developed an educational program for medical students and sought to investigate whether medical students’ comfort and familiarity with GAHT could increase after a short interactive program. METHODS: Second-year medical students (N=54) at the University of Minnesota were recruited to attend an hour long interactive lecture on GAHT. We calculated mean change in pre-and postintervention 5-point Likert scale scores from a survey assessing comfort and familiarity with key concepts of GAHT to assess the effectiveness of the intervention. RESULTS: Mean response score change increased significantly after the intervention around the use of chosen names (0.4±0.13, P<.017), the use of informed consent to initiate GAHT (1.8±0.20, P<.001), initiating and managing GAHT in the primary care setting (1.4±0.19, P<.001), medications used in GAHT (2.3±0.21, P<.001), and dosing (2.5±0.60, P<.001). CONCLUSIONS: GAHT can be initiated and managed in a primary care setting. There is a push to introduce GAHT in the preclinical years. After participating in a short interactive lecture on GAHT, second-year medical students reported increased comfort and familiarity with GAHT. Inclusion of GAHT in the preclinical curriculum does not require significant teaching time and is important knowledge for all future physicians.