Latest Sexual Health News <\/p>\n
WEDNESDAY, Feb. 18, 2015 (HealthDay News) -- Fear of discrimination is a major reason why about one-third of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) medical students stay \"in the closet,\" new research finds. <\/p>\n
The study included almost 1,000 LGBT respondents who answered an online survey. The survey was sent to every medical student in the United States and Canada during the 2009-2010 academic year. Thirty percent of those who said they were LGBT said they didn't reveal their sexual identity in medical school. <\/p>\n
Fear of discrimination was the main reason why 40 percent of them said they kept their sexual identity secret. Other reasons cited included a lack of support from family or peers, social pressure and the belief that it was nobody's business, the Stanford University School of Medicine researchers found. <\/p>\n
\"Fear of discrimination was the most common theme, discrimination from peers, from your evaluators and faculty members, also from patients,\" study author Matthew Mansh, a fourth-year medical student, said in a university news release. <\/p>\n
The researchers also found two-thirds of students who identified themselves as something other than male or female concealed their gender identity at medical school. <\/p>\n
Mansh, who's been openly gay since he was 17, noted, \"There were definitely times, more so during my clinical years, when I didn't go out of my way to let people know I was gay for reasons similar to some of the reasons the medical students in the survey gave.\" <\/p>\n
\"A lot of grading in medical school is very subjective. I have met physicians who make sexist or homophobic remarks, and it makes you not want to come out. You don't want your personal identity to affect your grade,\" he added. <\/p>\n
The study was published online Feb. 18 in the journal Academic Medicine. <\/p>\n
\"There is still this huge percentage of medical students who are afraid of discrimination in medical school and how it could affect the rest of their careers,\" study co-author Dr. Mitchell Lunn, co-founder of the Stanford Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Medical Education Research Group, said in the news release. <\/p>\n
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Originally posted here: <\/p>\n
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