Standardized Patient Encounter to Enhance Care to LGBTQIA+ Patients

Athletic trainers provide care for a variety of patients with diverse backgrounds, including members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, other diverse sexualities, other gender identities, or other gender expressions (LGBTQIA+) community. Learners who gain experience with patients who identify as LBGTQIA+ should be better prepared clinicians. The purpose of this paper is to describe a standardized patient (SP) experience for a patient who is gay and concerned about a sexually transmitted infection after a conversation with a previous partner. Patients who identify as LGBTQIA+ report substandard care and have poor health care experiences. Standardized patients are used in athletic training education as a method to teach and assess skills and can be used to improve the care that learners provide to patients who identify as gay. Education drives clinical practice, and incorporating SP cases in which learners must provide care for a patient who is gay will help the learners provide better inclusive patient-centered care as a clinician. Faculty may consider using a SP encounter to better prepare learners to provide care for a patient who is gay.