Early this year, Professor Yoon Hyun-bae of the Department of Human Systems Medicine at Seoul National University College of Medicine received emails from two students while handling class enrollments.  

The students were worried about being unable to register for Yoon’s class because the number of applicants had already reached the limit of 12.  

The course, titled ‘‘Health Rights and Health Care for Sexual Minorities,” was the first class on health issues concerning sexual minorities opened in Korea. It is a one-credit elective course for 12 sophomore students, according to the university. 

“I have a friend who was gay that asked me about his. I am a medical student, but I couldn’t give my friend a clear answer or where to ask it,” said one of the two students in the mail. “It is a doctor’s duty to protect patients’ health, and I felt it awkward the school not offering such a class. And, therefore, I was glad to hear the opening of the class for the sexual minority.”

Students at the medical college have to turn in their desired ranking of elective classes in first to fifth grades. Nine of the total 12 students chose this course as their favorite with the other three saying it was their second favorite, indicating the new course’s popularity among students. 

“I am not telling the medical students to be the specialists of LGBTQ healthcare,” Professor Yoon said. “The class’s goal is to make students, when they become doctors, deal with sexual minorities just like they do with heterosexuals.”  

The class is to help students realize the environment facing the LGBTQ community (lesbians, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer). Besides, the course aims to increase these sexual minorities’ access to healthcare. 

“The group with the least access to healthcare are transgender people,” Yoon said. “Gays and lesbians can hide their sexual identity. However, transgender people find it difficult not to reveal their sexual identity. I learned in the course of preparing for this class that transgender people refrain from visiting hospitals even to treat the cold, fearing that medical workers may have prejudices against them.”

Even in the United States, medical schools allocate only about five hours to the LGBTQ-related education in the four-year undergraduate course. Although Korea does not too far behind regard education hours, the overall social atmosphere in the U.S. towards the sexual minorities is far ahead of South Korea, according to Professor Yoon. 

Medical students, when learning about transgender health, they feel better equipped to treat transgender patients. In detail, when Boston University School of Medicine added transgender health content to a second-year endocrinology course, their students said a nearly 70 percent decrease in discomfort with providing transgenders with healthcare services, its study said. 

However, many gender minorities in the U.S. still face difficulty in healthcare. 

According to Healthy People 2020, an initiative of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, LGBT and transgender people in particular face disproportionately high rates of mental illness, HIV, unemployment, poverty and harassment. Besides, one in five LGBT adults has avoided medical care from fear of discrimination, according to a poll conducted by National Public Radio, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. 

Other medical schools also have shown interest in LGBTQ medical courses. 

According to 2018 survey sent on 658 students in New England medical schools, around 80 percent of them said they felt ‘not competent’ or ‘somewhat not competent’ with the medical treatment for gender and sexual minority patients. 

One positive aspect of the situation is that medical students are interested in the subject. Another student with the anonymous name B, said, “We learned that little things could help the sexual minorities, activities such as ‘putting up rainbow stickers’ and ‘not saying discriminatory words’ could be helpful.”

“Although SNU has started off running the first medical class targeting the sexual minority group, it will take quite some time for the class to be effective,” Professor Yoon said. “I believe it is enough for now for the medical students to learn that transgender people can receive hormone treatments or surgeries without stereotypes. Just knowing where to turn to when having health concerns can be a great help for them.”

Will the first class be able to wipe the tears of the LGBT society in Korea?