just curious  what % of doctors and health care professionals do you think understand what we go through as individuals and how hard are lives can be. Do you think they can really grasp our situation. What it's really like to have a brain-body conflict.

I don't know if they have a good grasp unless they are one. They could be sympathetic and/or deal with us just because we're part of their job. It seems like being a doctor or other medical professional you would have to think more matter of factly about a person's anatomy and maybe they are interested in the novelty. If trans people are really that rare all medical professionals may not have seen a trans person before.

I truly don't know about how to answer your poll. I was just guessing how they might think.

yea, that's all we can do is guess.

My therapist admitted 2 years ago she knew very little about transgenders , whether or not she was just saying that I don't know , but I'm teaching her. I really have faith in her ability as a psychologist so it doesn't bother me how much I have to teach her.

I have a good therapist. I don't know how many trans cases he's done, but I read somewhere that he was one of the few in my area that would work with transgender counseling. So I chose him. I never did ask him how many trans patients he had in the past, which I don't think they can answer that question anyway.

Well, I think their exposure is going to be very limited. The high end of estimates on the percentage of transgender people in the population is 5%, and the low end is .003%. So for the vast majority of healthcare providers, not many transgender people come through the door every day. Even then, those clients may be stealth, they may be closeted or in denial further reducing visibility and awareness to their providers.  Just my two cents worth. 

Hugs, Devlyn

I know for a fact that I was my therapist's first trans client. I was also my doctor's first trans patient. My endo, on the other had, specializes in working with us, and a few other things. As a guess, I would think the percentage is quite low. I would also guess that the few with knowledge are mostly hopelessly out of date. A class or two in med school years ago. Research in this area is moving at a breakneck pace.

I've seen 6 mental health professionals who claimed to have expertise working with trans people. Three were psychologists, one was a psychiatrist and two were clinical social workers.

Of those, only two had a clue (and one of those was trans himself...)

So that would be about 33%.

From my own and experiences of others there seems to be a lot understanding and support about these issues among them. Generally they at least try to be sympathetic , although I am sure not all of them would fully support this diverse community. But very few of them have real extensive experience or specialization in this area. I am sure it must vary very much by region or age of the people involved. If they are not too interested in these issues themselves how much does this get covered in their training? Trans issues get mentioned very rarely during discussions among regular people, most people here seem at least to be very tolerant even if they do not fully accept us. Compared to them the medical and psychological professionals are in another league.

Quote from: myraey on June 05, 2015, 09:47:02 AM
From my own and experiences of others there seems to be a lot understanding and support about these issues among them. Generally they at least try to be sympathetic , although I am sure not all of them would fully support this diverse community. But very few of them have real extensive experience or specialization in this area. I am sure it must vary very much by region or age of the people involved. If they are not too interested in these issues themselves how much does this get covered in their training? Trans issues get mentioned very rarely during discussions among regular people, most people here seem at least to be very tolerant even if they do not fully accept us. Compared to them the medical and psychological professionals are in another league.

I voted for the 0-10% option and i agree with everything you've said here. From my personal experience most doctors are aware of trans people and generally accepting, but when it comes to trans specific healthcare, their exposure to it is limited to none. They don't go over this topic extensively in medical school and adding onto the fact that trans people are quite rare, so that explains the lack of knowledge.  I am in nursing school atm and i've noticed the serious lack of lgbt education in my textbooks. We do go over hiv and std's but those arent confined to just the lgbt population.

Ive also been turned away from multiple doctors until ive found one that was willing to help me. If i had to ballpark, it would be around 1:100 that truly "get us". Mental health professionals do seem to be more prepared though.

The first therapist I had was more knowledgeable than I was, but she was also recommended by a support group as the only knowledgeable therapist in the area. Since then, I've run into way too many therapists that lie about having experience with it just to get me in the door so they can try to cure me, so based on my recent experiences, I've figured that's probably more the norm and went with 0-10%.

Well first of all not all therapists may called doctors.

A medical doctor in this context is someone who spent 5 years at medical school, and about seven years residency, holds an MBBS or MD degree and is generally medically qualified. Many therapists hold other qualifications and degrees including in some cases Phd's - A phd entitles you to the academic title of doctor - not the medical title, so you have to be very careful who you are including as a doctor. Most therapists, though educated to high degree level are technically NOT medical doctors.

So my answer 70 - 90 % was based on those who are MEDICAL doctors ONLY and in that category I am aware that for the last twenty years almost all medical schools have included some teaching on trans medicine. I know this because of course I am at medical school myself now, and I have recently completed writing a dissertation about aspects of the history of medical education, in the course of which I did quite a lot of research into things that interested me.

So... for medical doctors only I would say the figure is actually about 70% - it drops a lot if you add in therapist because many of them tend to be trained only in their own areas and disciplines, where all doctors will have had a general training before they do their specialities.

Now despite that encouraging 70% figure, that sadly doesnt translate to 70% being helpful because of that 70% who have knowledge, perhaps as many as 25% may have objections to the treatment for one reason or another, and of those who are left standing maybe only half of them will actually be practicing in a relevant speciality. So in practical terms its not quite so good - but as time goes on it is thankfully going to steadily improve.

thanks for the info