Canadian Medical Association Journal 1996; 155: 976
But Speight knows that is a tall order, and for the past 3 years he has helped fill the void with an Internet discussion group on gay and lesbian issues in medicine called glb-medical (email: kevinsp8@ac.dal.ca). "It's a chance to sign on to a group where there are hundreds of other people in a similar situation," he says.
More than 450 students, residents and doctors from Canada, the US and other countries now subscribe to glb-medical. This year, Speight also received an achievement award for his efforts from the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, which represents about 1800 doctors and medical students, mostly in the US.
Speight had learned the value of the Internet as a second-year biology student at Dalhousie. He used it to start coming out, and met another gay student from Dalhousie while checking information sites and discussion groups. "It was kind of a good way to come out because you could go one step at a time and it was anonymous," he recalls.
When he entered medical school in 1993, he took a bolder approach: he came out to his classmates by taking a date to the orientation-week dance. Within a few months, he launched glb-medical. "I wanted it most of all to be a forum for discussion and debate about issues and secondarily a support network," says the 23-year-old Speight, who is now entering his fourth year.
He says subscribers use his discussion group to share experiences, exchange information, do research and post news and announcements. "It's a good place to give people ideas about what they can do about issues in the medical school that they may not even realize they can speak up about," he says. He says it's also sparked some interesting debates, such as one on the value of gay doctors wearing a pink triangle in hospital or another on the Canadian Red Cross Society blood-donor-screening process.
Speight, who has a rainbow flag on his stethoscope to identify himself to gay patients, writes articles and, when appropriate, raises points in tutorial discussions. "Discrimination against gay people is one of the last forms of bigotry that's acceptable," he says. "The way around it is not to deal with the politics of [homosexuality] but the health aspects of it."
For the most part, however, he's had a positive experience, though he thinks gay and lesbian medical students still have a long way to go. "My ideal," he says, "[is] just for it to be a nonissue."