Psychiatrist Works to Include Transgender Issues in Residency Training
24/09/2012 22:23:00
http://www.healthcanal.com/mental-health-behavior/32456-Psychiatrist-Works-Include-Transgender-Issues-Residency-Training.html (http://www.healthcanal.com/mental-health-behavior/32456-Psychiatrist-Works-Include-Transgender-Issues-Residency-Training.html)
Jack Pula, MD, instructor of clinical psychiatry, was recently appointed chairperson of the Transgender Committee of the Association of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists.
In this role, Pula says he would like to create a network of psychiatrists and residents of all gender identities who are interested in changing the curricula of medical schools and residency programs nationwide to include training in transgender issues.
With homosexuality being removed from the DSM in 1973 and the generally positive societal shift in attitudes toward LGBT people, the tide is turning. But transgender people have not ridden the wave quite yet, according to Pula.
In the medical and psychiatric community, he explains, doctors still tend to think that transgender people are ill, "that they are by definition psychotic or personality disordered. They have not learned about transgender people who live healthy, well-adapted lives. For those who are mentally ill and transgender, they can be doubly stigmatized even by professionals who are supposed to help them," Pula says. "They often think transgender people can easily change in and out of their gender, and that it's more of a performance or cosmetic thing, as opposed to a core identity."