"There was no existing forum," says Dave Robertson, one of three "out" gay students and several heterosexual classmates who founded the U of T Medical Sexual Orientation Issues Group (MedSOIG). "That was apparent to all of us right from orientation week," which addressed minority and women's issues but "completely passed over" gay and lesbian concerns. But Robertson and his classmates wanted more than just a support group for gay and lesbian students. "What we stressed was that these are issues for everybody, because all of us are going to have gay and lesbian and bisexual patients, and all of us have gay, lesbian and bisexual colleagues," he says.
Obviously, many students agreed. About 30 went to the group's first meeting in February, most of them heterosexual. Indeed, the turnout at MedSOIG's two educational events last spring is a measure of student interest and gaps in the curriculum. About 80 students went to MedSOIG's workshop on sexual orientation, and 120 to its panel discussion on diversity. Cosponsored by the Korean Medical Students Association, the panel featured five doctors from different minority groups, including the gay and lesbian communities.
Robertson says the U of T curriculum in first year doesn't deal "forthrightly" with homosexual issues. He says MedSOIG "would like to see them introduced early and directly" in a clinical-skills course, which spans first and second year.
Dr. Jill Tinmouth, an internal medicine resident at the U of T with experience in gay and lesbian student organizations in the US, warns that groups like MedSOIG tend to come and go because students get too busy. But Robertson predicts that won't happen: "What we hope is that in future years, someone else will take the flame.
"All of us realize this isn't just about gay and lesbian and bisexual rights, this is about realizing we live in a multicultural society, and our patients and colleagues are multicultural...More than half of our class, for instance, is non-white, and that alone indicates the need for significant recognition in the curriculum that we live in a very diverse society."