Abstract
Pharmacists are increasingly part of a multifaceted team providing health care to members of the often marginalized transgender (TG) community. Some pharmacists, however, may feel unprepared to care for and interact with TG individuals. By providing comprehensive, respectful, and gender-affirming support, improving physical pharmacy environments with policies and procedures, pharmacists can be trustworthy providers for TG patients. This review focuses primarily on the health issues of TG persons and the pharmacist's role in promoting health, identifying barriers to health care, and providing health care resources for TG persons. The evolution of psychiatric diagnostic criteria, access to health care, and inclusion of TG, lesbian, gay, and bisexual topics in the educational curriculum are presented. Cultural competency and diversity training that addresses gender identity and sexual orientation issues should be important interdisciplinary and interprofessional activities for all health care professional education programs. Pharmacists play a key role in the health care needs of TG persons that include appropriate laboratory monitoring, complex pharmacotherapeutic challenges, and providing unbiased gender-affirming interactions. The pharmacy's physical environment, staff training, and policies and procedures can offer unique services to TG persons.
Highlights
The role of the pharmacist has changed considerably over the past decade, in part, as a result of the introduction of automated prescription filling systems and greater responsibilities of pharmacy technicians.[1,2,3,4] Pharmacists find they have greater opportunities to become a more essential and visible component of individualized patient care
The exact number of pharmacists involved with transgender (TG) health care is unknown, they are included as part of a multifaceted team delivering health care to the TG and lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) community.[5]
Many TG patients experience challenges in the health care system that leads to disparities in health care and formidable barriers to receiving appropriate and culturally competent care
Summary
The role of the pharmacist has changed considerably over the past decade, in part, as a result of the introduction of automated prescription filling systems and greater responsibilities of pharmacy technicians.[1,2,3,4] Pharmacists find they have greater opportunities to become a more essential and visible component of individualized patient care. The exact number of pharmacists involved with transgender (TG) health care is unknown, they are included as part of a multifaceted team delivering health care to the TG and lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) community (e.g., as part of the Fenway Health’s multidisciplinary health care model).[5] pharmacists can be approachable, reliable providers for TG patients who may feel safer sharing their concerns or issues with a pharmacist rather than a physician.[6] pharmacists play an important role as a partner with primary care providers. Both clinical pharmacists and psychiatric pharmacists (with behavioral and pharmacologic expertise) have been introduced as crucial part of an interprofessional team to provide health care to TG veterans.[7]
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