UF and ICHP Child Health Researchers Host Transgender Care Workshop at PAS Meeting

A team of child health researchers from UF’s Department of Pediatrics and the Institute for Child Health Policy (ICHP) hosted a workshop on caring for transgender patients at the Pediatric Academies Society’s (PAS’) annual meeting in San Francisco on May 6-9.

The workshop, led by Janet Silverstein, M.D., professor and chief of pediatric endocrinology in UF’s Department of Pediatrics, provided a forum for exploring a number of issues and best practices related to transgender health in a pediatric setting. Topics discussed included office set-up and culture, staff training and communication, electronic health record documentation, reimbursement difficulties, legal change of identification, and such clinical issues as parental and social support, reproduction, and routine care for the child’s biologic sex.

Other presenting members of the team included Lindsay Thompson, M.D., associate professor in the departments of Pediatrics and Health Outcomes & Policy and assistant director of clinical research at ICHP, and Amanda Hicks, Ph.D., assistant professor on the biomedical informatics team in the Department of Health Outcomes & Policy and a faculty member at ICHP. Other members included Stephanie Ryan, M.D., in the UF Department of Pediatrics and LGBT affairs liaison to the Dean of Diversity and Health Equity; Corey Gallet de St. Aurin, patient advocate, and Rebeccah Mercado, research coordinator for pediatrics and Ph.D. student in the College of Health and Human Performance.

“The workshop gave us a unique opportunity to collaborate and exchange ideas on transgender issues with other child health researchers,” Thompson said, but added, “there is still a lot of work to be done, especially in offering care that is patient-centered.”