Advancing Sexual and Gender Minority Education in Radiology Training: Opportunities for Residency Programs

Purpose: Sexual and gender minority (SGM) patients face significant health disparities, in part due to a lack of physician cultural competence and training. Radiology-specific education related to SGM populations is critical to help decrease patients' negative experiences and health disparities in radiology. Radiology-specific education must include introductions to gender-affirming surgeries and, more importantly, SGM cultural competency. To assess radiologists' interest in learning about SGM health topics, the authors systematically reviewed recent publications from radiology and medical journals.

Methods/Materials: A systematic review identified the number of publications about SGM health in radiology from 2014 to 2023 using PubMed. The search query consisted of three groups of key terms related by the “AND” operator: SGM terms (LGBT, LGBTQ, LGBTQIA, LGBTQ2S, Trans, Transgender, Gender Nonconforming, Gender Nonbinary, Intersex, Gender Diversity, Gender Variance, Sexual Diversity, Sexual Variance, Sexual and Gender Minorities, Gay, Lesbian, or Homosexual), resident education terms (Resident Education, Trainee Education, Trainee, Resident, Education, or Training), and radiology terms (Radiology, Diagnostic Radiology, or Interventional Radiology). Search terms were limited to publication titles and abstracts. Inclusion criteria included an available abstract and English text. Titles and abstracts were reviewed.

Results: The search query returned 188 entries. 7 were excluded. Review of titles and abstracts yielded 31 relevant entries about resident education, residency diversity and recruitment efforts, patient health inequities and experiences, clinical SGM health topics, and more. The number of publications increased from 4 entries between 2014 and 2018 to 27 entries between 2019 and 2023.

Conclusions: Existing literature demonstrates a deficiency in SGM health education within medical schools and radiology residency programs. To bridge this gap, there has been an increase in relevant publications, yet a significant shortfall persists. Implementing targeted, radiology-specific education within radiology residencies may be crucial for addressing this gap and enhancing the care of SGM patients in radiology.