Many of my colleagues at Mazzoni Center are still recovering from another successful conclusion of the Philadelphia Trans-Health Conference, which took place at the Pennsylvania Convention Center June 12-14, and this year drew more than 3,500 attendees from throughout the region and around the world. Each year the event is a whirlwind of activity, inspiration, education and community engagement.
While many are familiar with the “general” conference — which draws the largest crowds — Mazzoni Center has also been working over the last two years to develop a smaller-scale professional track within the conference, which is specifically aimed at practitioners of medicine, behavioral health and law, to help them gain the knowledge they need to provide the highest level of service to clients who are trans-identified. It’s an opportunity to share new developments and best practices, to network and learn from others working in the field. As one of the organizers and coordinators of our professional track, I have been especially thrilled at the growth of this area in recent years, and the overwhelmingly positive feedback we’ve received from colleagues around the country.
The Trans Clinical Care and Management Program (TCCM), which is where I’m involved, was developed from the idea that there is no other conference in the United States that provides the space for exchange of information on the clinical care of trans and gender-nonconforming people. The World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) has been the leader internationally for transgender health care for many years, but its annual gathering is often expensive and requires a capacity to travel internationally to attend. Our goal at the Philadelphia Trans-Health Conference is to provide clinical information about transgender health care, from the basic to the advanced level, to any interested provider, and to do so at a reasonable cost.
Since its inception, the Philadelphia Trans-Health Conference has taken great pride in being a free conference to ‘”regular” attendees; there is no registration fee to participate in the general workshops and activities of the conference. However, we do charge a nominal fee for those who attend the professional tracks of the conference because they receive Continuing Education Credits in return (or in the case of attorneys, CLE credits). For medical and legal providers alike, these credits are a key element to maintaining licensure and staying current in standards of care.
To ensure we are providing the best, most accurate and consistent information in these professional workshops, we have a tightly controlled screening process for presenters and content. We were particularly excited about our partnership this year with the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association (GLMA), which has been a leader in LGBT health for decades, and which served as the certifying body for medical and nursing continuing-education credits that participants in our professional track received. It’s a sign of the growing recognition within the medical community of the need to understand and implement high-quality, culturally competent health care for trans-identified individuals.
Each year, our presenters are selected based upon a particular theme or focus, as well as areas of clinical expertise. This year, the focus was on current research and unique case studies, which are seen by Mazzoni providers with regularity, but probably less often by clinicians who have fewer transgender patients in their practices. Among the workshops featured was a presentation by a local Ph.D. candidate looking at the cardiovascular changes of transgender patients compared to cisgender counter populations. We also had a researcher from Columbia University Hospital in New York who is gathering data from transgender patients regarding their experiences in emergency departments around the country.
One of the most notable emerging trends in the field of trans health is the treatment of gender-nonconforming children, and this was definitely reflected in the conversations among providers at this year’s conference. Here at Mazzoni, we launched a program earlier this year that is specifically aimed at gender-nonconforming youth and their families, to provide them with the most current information and treatment options and collaborate with each patient and family system in order to form a comprehensive and individual treatment plan.
As health-care professionals, we are only just beginning to look at transgender health from a long-term perspective. At Mazzoni Center, we have about 10 years of solid data specific to transgender patients and their care, which we are able to study and which enables us to identify outcomes and trends that will help guide our practices going forward. This data helps us understand and make adjustments to things like hormone-delivery methods, monitoring bloodwork and recognizing unintended and not-well-understood health impacts of medical transition.
In medicine, there is always more to learn. Having access to our own data, along with the opportunity to exchange ideas and information with other providers, is what will help us provide the best possible care and advice for our patients.
Mazzoni has long utilized an “informed consent” model for transgender care, which essentially means that the individual patient is empowered to make decisions regarding his or her health care, after receiving and evaluating information from a team of medically trained providers. (We do not require patients to bring us a letter from a therapist or to spend a prescribed amount of time living as their preferred gender in order to receive transition-related care). We are now seeing informed consent become the standard of care around the country. At the Trans-Health Conference, providers exchange methods and advice on offering patients the most accurate and helpful information so they can provide informed consent. This has become an expectation among clinicians in attendance.
As the Trans-Health Conference continues to grow, the organizers will continue to evaluate and update the content we are presenting so we can best meet the needs of the providers who attend. The area of high-level provision of transgender health care is one that is changing rapidly and the Trans-Health Conference is providing a place for dedicated professionals to receive up-to-date information, year after year.
Dane Menkin, MSN, CRNP, AAHIVM, is clinical-operations manager at Mazzoni Center Family and Community Medicine. For more information, call 215-563-0652 or visit www.mazzonicenter.org.