2016 Design Value Award Winner: KPLantern, to understand the transgender person experience

2016 Design Value Award Winner: KPLantern, to understand the transgender person experience

Thanks, Design Management Institute (@DMIfeed) for awarding KPLantern a Design Value Award for 2016.

– Kaiser Permanente is the nation’s highest performing health system
– We know there are problems that can’t be solved with medical care alone
– Lantern was the opportunity for someone like me, a family medicine physician, to work with Chris McCarthy (@McCarthyChris) and our amazing design consultancy (led on this project by Dana Ragazeous) to change the face of health, within one of the most important civil rights issues of our time

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Just Read: Room For Change – Levels of Discrimination in Retail Stores Based on Gender Identity and Race

Just Read: Room For Change - Levels of Discrimination in Retail Stores Based on Gender Identity and Race

Out of 60 in-person tests conducted across D.C., Maryland and Virginia, 75 percent of gender identity testers experienced adverse, differential treatment compared to their cis-gendered counterparts. Adverse differential treatment included differences in quality, quantity or content of services provided to the testers.

Similarly, of the 60 tests, 40 percent of gender identity testers experienced a negative interaction, including but not limited to verbal harassment, rude service, refusal to assist and being followed by an employee or security.

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Photo Friday: Kenilworth - Parkside, Washington, DC USA - A dose of beauty and innovation

Photo Friday: Kenilworth – Parkside, Washington, DC USA – A dose of beauty and innovation

I’ve never been to Kenilworth-Parkside in Washington, DC, until I was brought there, by the Wright Center Family Medicine Residency (@WrightGME) to give a didactic on being a transgender ally (see more info about that presentation, including slides, here).

I’m always curious, so I mapped the population vulnerability data for this neighborhood, and it is vulnerable, 42 % poverty rate, 28 % people without high school diplomas.

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Just Presented: Working to be a Transgender Ally | Wright Center Family Medicine Residency, Washington, DC USA

Just Presented: Working to be a Transgender Ally | Wright Center Family Medicine Residency, Washington, DC USA

I was asked by James Huang, MD (@semaj187) to give a presentation to the Washington, DC site Wright Center National Family Medicine Residency (@WrightCenterGME) on the policy issues relating to transgender person health.

So, not about how to deliver medical care, how to improve the health of the population. The two concepts are different and interrelated.
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Remembering #UnicornJess at DC Tech Meetup, Washington, DC USA

Remembering #UnicornJess at DC Tech Meetup, Washington, DC USA

People are at their best when they bring all of themselves to something. These moments are important and I want to document them. Sometimes people don’t realize until later how important they are.

It was great to meet Christopher Breene (@GoForTopherB) for the first time as he brought all of himself to a room full of the future, while Martin Luther King, Jr. looked on.

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#WalkBikeForward : Thoughts on Active Communities, 20 years later

#WalkBikeForward : Thoughts on Active Communities, 20 years later

I was recently interviewed for this piece about active communities by the team at Alta Planning + Design: #WalkBikeForward with Ted Eytan – AP+D. Below are the unedited version of my comments (because disk space is cheap and I can have as much space as I want on my own feed). Enjoy, comments welcome.

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Just Read: Doing the Right Thing for Trans Health is Now Easier Than You Think

Just Read: Doing the Right Thing for Trans Health is Now Easier Than You Think

One of my professional colleagues, Dana Beyer, MD (@DanaBeyerMD), wrote this beautiful column in the Huffington Post recently (Doing the Right Thing for Trans Health is Now Easier Than You Think | Huffington Post).

It describes the numerous protections that transgender people now have when it comes to receiving equitable, medically supervised care. A lot of physicians and care providers I encounter are not aware of these protections. Sometimes it’s the opposite – they feel UNprotected in providing science-based care to people in this population. Continue reading→