Integration of transgender care into a pharmacy therapeutics curriculum

Background and purpose: To examine the impact of a lecture on transgender health given during a special populations therapeutics course on third-year (P3) pharmacy students' knowledge and confidence of transgender care. Educational activity and setting: A two-hour lecture that included both cultural sensitivity and pharmacotherapy aspects of care for transgender individuals was added to a required two-credit therapeutics series offered at the end of the P3 year of a doctor of pharmacy curriculum. Following the lecture, students completed a 17-item knowledge-based survey and ranked their confidence with each answer on a 5-point scale. Students in the fourth-year (P4) class, who had not been given the lecture, also completed the survey. Findings: Students who attended the lecture had a significantly higher mean knowledge score and mean confidence score than students who did not attend. The P3 class had a mean knowledge score of 72.5% while the mean knowledge score for the P4 class was 63.4% (P < 0.01). The P3's mean confidence score was 76.8% and the P4's mean confidence score was 60.6% (P < 0.01). Discussion: To the authors' knowledge, this is the first report on incorporating the topic of transgender care to a required disease and therapeutics series in a college of pharmacy curriculum. Summary: Students who attended a lecture on care of transgender individuals performed significantly better on a knowledge-based assessment and reported having greater confidence in their answers than students who did not attend the lecture.