LGBT Health Care Event at UAMS Jan. 16

By Yourwellness Last updated Jan 10, 2014 7

LITTLE ROCK, AR (News release) – Health care professionals and the general public are invited to a free conference Jan. 16 at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) focusing on health care disparities in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) population.

The conference will be held from 8 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. in the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute 10th floor Walton Auditorium. Breakfast and lunch will be provided. Click here to preregister and to see an agenda.

The conference, “Providing Optimal Health Care for LGBT Patients,” is sponsored by the UAMS Center for Diversity Affairs, Arkansas Primary Care Association and The Fenway Institute.

It features keynote speaker Harvey Makadon, M.D., director of the National LGBT Health Education Center at The Fenway Institute in Boston and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. His lecture, “Taking a History of Sexual Health – Recognizing the Risk,” will be at 9 a.m.

“LGBT people have disproportionately high rates of tobacco use, HIV infection, encounters with violence and homelessness, elevated rates of depression and suicide attempts, and reduced access to preventive health services,” Makadon said. “A critical step in dealing with these disparities is to educate providers on how to provide optimal care for LGBT people.”

UAMS Chancellor Dan Rahn, M.D., will welcome participants, then Billy Thomas, M.D., vice chancellor for diversity and inclusion, will give an overview of LGBT health and health care.

The conference includes several panel discussions featuring Daniel Knight, M.D., chair of the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine in the UAMS College of Medicine; Sara Tariq, M.D., associate professor in the Department of Internal Medicine in the UAMS College of Medicine; Gary Wheeler, M.D., branch chief of infectious diseases for the Arkansas Department of Health; Kate Stewart, M.D., professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management in the UAMS College of Public Health; Shannon Starr, M.D., assistant professor of clinical medicine in the Department of Family Medicine at Louisiana State; Jeffery Neal, M.D., from the Department of Psychiatry in UAMS College of Medicine; and Craig Wilson, director of Access to Quality Care at Arkansas Center for Health Improvement.

“The focus of the conference will be on the health disparities among the LGBT community,” Thomas said. “Our target group is primary care physicians, but we want to open up the conference to the public in order to educate people on the wide health care gap that exists in the LGBT population.”