LGBT Care for Older Adults and Serious Illness: Podcast with Carey Candrian and Angela Primbas

Published: Jan. 29, 2021, 12:25 a.m.

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Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) older adults have lived through a lifetime of discrimination, social stigma, prejudice, and marginalization.\\xa0 Is the care that we are giving them in later life changing any of that or are we pushing them back into the closet?

This is what we talk about in this week\'s podcast with Carey Candrian from the University of Colorado School of Medicine, and Angela Primbas from Stanford University (and future geriatrics fellow at UCSF!).\\xa0\\xa0

Carey has published a wonderful article in the Gerontologist titled \\u201cShe\\u2019s Dying and I Can\\u2019t Say We\\u2019re Married?\\u201d: End-of-Life Care for LGBT Older Adults, in which she describes how older LGBT adults may be at higher risk for having their health care wishes ignored or disregarded, their families of choice are less likely to be included in their decision making, and they may experience increased isolation, bullying, mistreatment, or abuse, which ultimately contribute to receipt of poor-quality health care.\\xa0

We talk about the scripts that we use in medicine that may hamper open discussions about sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) including the term \\u201cfamily meeting\\u201d, the need to revise our intake forms to incorporate SOGI questions, and the need for education.\\xa0 We also get a chance to hear Alex Sing \\u201cThe Story\\u201d whose lyrics very much speak to the subject at hand:

\\u201cAll of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I\'ve been
And how I got to where I am
But these stories don\'t mean anything
When you\'ve got no one to tell them to\\u2026\\u201d

If you want to learn more, please check out these wonderful resources:

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