Jessica Halem on communicating with LGBTQ+ patients Part 2

In Part 2 of my interview with Jessica Halem, MBA, Jessica shares useful phrases and encouragement for the next time you’re speaking with LGBTQ+ patients.

Jessica Halem has spent the past 25 years working in LGBTQ health. First as the executive director of the Lesbian Community Cancer Project in Chicago, to serving on the Board of GLMA which is the largest association of LGBTQ healthcare professionals, to now 10 years in academic medicine at Harvard Medical School and the University of Pennsylvania, teaching the next generation of healthcare providers how to care for LGBTQ patients. She currently serves on the Board of the Tegan and Sara Foundation where she built the LGBTQ+ Healthcare Directory.

This is Part 2 (Part 1 here) of my interview with Jessica Halem. Jessica fills your cup to overflowing with useful phrases and encouragement for the next time you’re speaking with LGBTQ+ patients. Hi everybody, I'm Dr. Anne Marie Liebel, and this is 10 Minutes to Better Patient Communication, ranked #20 of Top 100 Podcasts in Social Sciences by Goodpods. Our online course, Equitable Patient Education, promotes high-quality clinical practice by helping prevent avoidable errors. Learners say, There's a lot of eye-opening information I hadn't considered before. For more information, visit healthcommunicationpartners.com. 

In Part 1, Jessica and I talked about medicine’s historical role in creating and perpetuating LGBTQ health disparities, and the important work that’s been underway to address these harms. In Part 2, Jessica shares so many precious jewels of wisdom with us, it’s staggering.  One of my favorite parts is how she lets us off the worry-and-guilt hook, and focuses us on what’s really at issue here: patient care. We pick up our conversation as Jessica teaches about opening a conversation with an LGBTQ patient by acknowledging past harms, and offering a new start.

Jessica: And so that’s a piece of what I always want to remind people of is saying, “Hey, I bet you’ve had a bunch of bad experiences before we met today. It might have just been on the way into the facility. It might have been over the years in the health care system, but I want you to know that I see you. I hear you. I’m glad you’re here. How can we start fresh? How can I start over with you? How can I start to heal maybe some of those bad experiences you’ve had? Or how can we just start anew, right? Can we start from the beginning? Tell me what do I need to know?” And those healthcare workers, again, they know the kinds of help that people need. It’s how to get there. So, you know, what do I want people to know is I just want them to know that saying things in a different way, recognize that historic injustice, whether it’s personal or communal or the big picture, hundreds of years of history is a great place to start.

Anne Marie: And that also takes the onus off them if we’re going to talk about a large history.

J: That's right

AM: Like you don’t, you might not know so much about this individual in front of you, but you know something about the history and you can at least motion to the group and motion to, you know, the widespread difficulties that you are aware of

That's right

before you try and dial down. We were talking before the show about how the willingness, you’ve seen the willingness to do the right thing. And y