Sometimes, clinicians can make assumptions about a person’s sexual practices. Several reports have shown that when health professionals discriminate or impose their prejudices on their patients, the quality of their healthcare suffers. Many LGBTIQ patients have experienced discrimination at some stage in their lives and may be highly sensitive to discrimination or judgement from healthcare professionals. As such, clinical settings must be spaces where LGBTIQ individuals feel safe to disclose their sexuality without fear of judgement.
In the following section, we’ll develop clinical skills with lesbian, gay and bisexual patients.
Prerequisite note: if you haven't already, we recommend you check out our first short course on Terminology, which will help you to have an understanding of terms used in this course, including Sex, Gender and Sexuality. It is optional but will help set a foundational understanding of what these terms mean.