Transgender Healthcare: Development of an Illustrated eLearning Tool for Medical Education

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Transgender Health
• eLearning

Background:

• Transgender healthcare competency among medical professionals is inadequate.
• Standardized curricula for transgender health education are largely absent.
• There is a need for innovative teaching methods in medical education.

Purpose of the Study:

• To create and evaluate an interactive eLearning module for transgender healthcare competencies.
• To address the lack of standardized curricula in transgender health.
• To improve medical students' knowledge, comfort, and preparedness in caring for transgender patients.

Main Methods:

• Development of a visual-format, interactive eLearning module on transgender healthcare.
• Implementation with 416 medical students (MS1-MS4) from a NY-based medical school.
• Pre/post surveys assessed changes in knowledge, comfort, and preparedness; statistical analysis used the Chi-squared test.

Main Results:

• Before the module, a majority of MS3 and MS4 students rated preclinical transgender curricula as poor or fair.
• After the module, 79% of 187 participants felt more comfortable and 81% felt more prepared.
• Statistically significant increases in comfort levels were observed across all participating classes.

Conclusions:

• The interactive eLearning module effectively enhanced medical students' confidence and readiness to provide transgender healthcare.
• This visual learning tool can serve as a scalable model for integrating transgender health into medical school curricula nationally.
• Embracing virtual learning is crucial for advancing transgender healthcare education.