Hormone therapy, top surgeries part of medical school's ‘gender-affirming’ care
The University of Southern California medical school will provide hormone therapy and top surgeries as part of its ‘gender-affirming’ care.
USC’s medical school collaborated with the TransLatin@ Coalition to improve its services through training faculty and staff and hosting focus groups with the LGBTQ community.
The University of Southern California (USC) medical school recently launched “a full range of gender-affirming primary care and transition-related health care services.”
These services, delivered by Keck Medicine, include hormone therapy as well as top, genital, and face surgeries.
“The physicians and program staff have collectively received more than 600 hours of gender-affirming sensitivity and inclusivity training,” Keck Medicine wrote in an announcement of the program.
The announcement continues by crediting two physicians for implementing the program, including Rob Travieso, who “is fellowship-trained in gender-affirming surgery.”
Travieso, an assistant professor of clinical surgery at USC, “went to Johns Hopkins University for an intensive fellowship in complex gender affirmation surgery,” according to his biography.
To develop its gender-affirming care program, Keck Medicine worked with the TransLatin@ Coalition.
A press release announcing the Keck Medicine-TransLatin@ collaboration described the coalition as “the largest trans-led nonprofit organization in Los Angeles that advocates for the needs of transgender, gender non-conforming and intersex (TGI) immigrants across the country.”
Providing peer navigators to help patients access services, training medical school faculty and staff, and soliciting feedback through community focus groups are among the results of the collaboration.
Hospitals under Keck Medicine, the press release says, are designated as LGBTQ Healthcare Equality Leaders by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). This designation is for hospitals receiving HRC’s top score based on a rubric that evaluates staff training, hiring practices, policies, support of LGBTQ community events, and other criteria.
In a phone interview with Campus Reform, HRC referenced an upcoming presentation at the American College of Healthcare Executives annual Congress on Healthcare Leadership.
“Creating a Gender-Affirming Care Program With the Transgender Community” will feature Keck Medicine as an exemplar for delivering these services.
Tari Hanneman, the director of HRC’s Health & Aging Program, named some of the best practices that earned Keck Medicine its Healthcare Equality Leaders designation. She told Campus Reform that Keck includes gender identity items, such as a patient’s name and pronouns, in electronic health records. This information is displayed to providers so that they avoid misgendering patients, which Hanneman said is one of the biggest forms of discrimination experienced by transgender patients.
She also commended Keck Medicine for its partnership with TransLatin@, which she called an important community voice in Los Angeles.
Keck Medicine’s website shows that it also delivers support to the LGBTQ community through its philanthropy wing, the community benefit program.
An FY21 report for the Keck Medicine community benefit program–the set of services, education, and donations connected to its broader mission–lists an “LGBTQ Health and Cultural Competency Training for 34 medical students” as one of its activities.
As medical schools adopt gender-affirming care, Campus Reform has reported on the critical response from those concerned with these programs, especially programs serving minors.
In August 2022, a faculty member of Yale’s pediatric medicine program said that she provides gender-affirming services to “‘gender-expansive individuals 3 to 25 and their families.’”
[RELATED: BYU organization wants to keep ‘gender affirming care’ for minors]
Later that year, Vanderbilt announced that it would cease transition surgeries for minors following an investigation by Matt Walsh, a journalist with the Daily Wire.
The investigation revealed that one doctor with the Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) called gender transitions a “‘big money maker,’” noting the $40,000 price tag for some of these surgeries, according to the Daily Wire.
Walsh tweeted that Vanderbilt’s announcement was “[a]n incredibly important victory.”
Campus Reform contacted the University of Southern California, Keck Medicine, and theTransLatin@ Coalition for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
Follow Emily Fowler on Twitter
