I usually ask: 'What are your current social or romantic relationships?' This open-ended statement is clearly generic, not specific in its language with respect to heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual partnerships. Every dimension of a person's life is relevant to his or her health, and must be factored in when a doctor thinks about symptoms or clinical problems.

My question is: How can doctors be less 'assuming' about their patients' sexual orientation and more pro-active about welcoming a dialogue about gay/bi issues with their patients - because we all want the best care and diagnoses for all patients.Īnswer: Every physician needs to know a patient's social context, in the same way the doctor should know about a patient's family history and occupation. And so I volunteered information about my sexual history. My answer for his question - if he had not assumed that everyone coming into his office is straight (or people who somehow 'look' straight are indeed straight and not gay) - would be vastly different if he had considered that there are gay people in this world.Īs he was about to go onto his next question (vaccination status), I apologized and interrupted him, and brought up the courage to tell him I'm gay.even though I could lose my job for this (in 33 states this is legal), even though I have no recourse for it if I were in fact fired for being gay, even though I could be disowned by my family who is very religious (evangelical Christian) which I know a couple friends have been, etc.

But I don't announce it to the world in rainbow colors. But.I was disappointed because he did not consider that I was not heterosexual like him and probably 80-90% of his patients.

How doctors think book