The Sawyer Pardo Fellowship for LGBTQ+ Health Program

Program Objectives

  • LGBTQ+ primary care, including hormone therapy for transgender and gender expansive persons, reproductive and sexual health, family planning, and HIV medicine within the primary care setting. 

  • Interprofessional community-based behavioral health, including demonstration of the management of mental health conditions in the primary care setting and the identification and management of mental health conditions that are disproportionately present in LGBTQ+ populations  

  • Qualitative, participatory, and mixed-methods research approaches to addressing health issues and health disparities which have been identified as important and meaningful to LGBTQ+ populations. 

  • Curriculum development and design that furthers undergraduate and graduate medical training with the focus on health equity and justice. 

  • Health system and community-based program design and integration of interdisciplinary LGBTQ+ medicine programs across specialties. 

Advocacy: The fellow will partner with Equality Ohio to develop advanced advocacy skills around issues impacting LGBTQ+ health. The fellow work working with family medicine faculty at the Immigrant & Refugee Law Center providing evaluations to individuals who are seeking asylum in Ohio because of persecution related to sexual orientation or gender identity. These experiences will prepare fellows to be advocacy leaders in future practice and community settings.  

Clinical Activities (50%):

  • The fellow will develop a LGBTQ+ focused patient panel at the UC West Chester Family Medicine Residency Program, a faculty and resident ambulatory family medicine office.  The total clinical sessions at the UC West Chester Family Medicine Residency Program will be five half-days per week.   

  • The fellow’s clinical scope will include LGBTQ+ primary care, including gender affirming hormone therapy for transgender and gender expansive adults 

  • The fellow will provide direct, independent clinical care with ongoing mentorship as needed from the Program Directors. 

  • The fellow will provide broad spectrum primary care aligned with their residency training. 

  • The fellow will participate in quality improvement initiatives within clinical practice.  

  • Additional clinical experiences with fellowship faculty will occur Equitas Health, UC Health Hartwell, UC Health specialty clinics (eg: infectious disease, plastic surgery, urology, obstetrics and gynecology, endocrinology, gender spectrum voice, etc) 

Academic Activities and Leadership Development (50%): 

Program Structure

Research: The fellow will have opportunities to engage in research related to health equity and inclusion in medical and graduate education as well as community-based participatory research on LGBTQ+ health outcomes. To prepare the fellow for these research experiences, the fellow will have faculty mentorship, direct support of the Research Division in the Department of Family and Community Medicine and will complete the Clinical and Translational Research certification program at UC.  The fellow will engage with Equitas Health to collaborate on community-based participatory research or quality improvement initiatives.   

 Education: The fellow will have the opportunity to participate in undergraduate and graduate medical education curriculum design at UC College of Medicine to prepare them for future academic roles. Fellows will opportunities to teach resident physicians, medical students, and interdisciplinary learners.

Mentorship:  Each fellow will have clinical, research, and academic mentorship from the fellowship program faculty with clinical leadership and research expertise. This will include developing a highly individualized curriculum plan for experiential learning throughout the fellowship and support in future career planning.

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