Medical Student Pride Alliance: The first national LGBTQ+medical student affinity organisation.

Abstract

National affinity organisations for medical students from groups that are under-represented in medicine, such as the Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association, the Latino Medical Student Association and the Student National Medical Association, have significant impact on promoting diversity and inclusion within the physician workforce pipeline.1 However, no national affinity organisation exists for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) medical students, despite the fact that many medical schools have local affinity organisations. This lack of a national communication and resource network has limited curricular reform, research, recruitment and inclusion efforts among LGBTQ+ medical trainees. We established the Medical Student Pride Alliance (MSPA), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organisation [exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code] with a national leadership composed of six student-led committees coordinated by an elected executive director. Organised in early 2018, the initial leadership team included 18 medical student members and 13 founding chapters at US medical schools. The MSPA Advisory Board includes eight medical school faculty members with content and advocacy expertise in the support of both learners and patients who identify as LGBTQ+. The MSPA serves a mission of supporting education, innovation and leadership. To this end, we have numerous ongoing research projects aimed at understanding the needs and interests of LGBTQ+ medical students, as well as several education and advocacy initiatives (documented on our website medpride.org). To build community on a national scale, our chapter structure balances local organisation autonomy with support from a national network of supportive peers and mentors. We use the communication app, Slack™, as a public forum in which MSPA members can share resources, local successes and professional opportunities. This connection aims to foster a national sense of community, regardless of LGBTQ+ student and faculty member presence at individual medical schools. So far, we have learned several lessons from our experiences with the MSPA. First, we have found that students at medical schools lacking a local LGBTQ+ affinity group often desire a greater sense of community and institutional support than is locally available to them. For that reason, the MSPA offers a list of volunteer faculty staff who provide distance mentoring to medical students at other institutions. Furthermore, we have implemented faculty member sponsorship as a requirement for each chapter of the MSPA as a means of identifying faculty mentors, as well as ensuring the longitudinal oversight of projects and proper handoffs between student leaders annually. In addition, we have learned that many LGBTQ+ medical students are concerned about being ‘out’ with regard to their sexual orientation or gender identity in residency applications, which might impede their involvement with the MSPA (MSPA unpublished data 2019). Accordingly, we have made anonymous opportunities for student membership available. Moreover, to actively support intersectionality within the MSPA community, we include statements of diversity support in our recruitment materials and are firmly committed to engaging in health care advocacy that impacts communities beyond LGBTQ+ individuals. Overall, we anticipate rapid expansion of the MSPA within US medical schools and internationally in the coming years, and we welcome proposals for partnerships with organisations that support the professional development of LGBTQ+ health care providers.