Professional Documents
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Solotke Et Al 2020
Solotke Et Al 2020
Solotke Et Al 2020
https://www.emerald.com/insight/1751-1879.htm
Abstract
Purpose – Leadership training refers to the process of helping individuals develop skills to
successfully perform in leadership positions. Existing leadership programs have several drawbacks,
including the paucity of leadership programs designed for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer
(LGBTQþ) individuals in health care. The authors addressed this gap by creating and hosting
Q-Forward (formerly Q-Med), the first conference focused specifically on leadership development for
LGBTQþ health trainees.
Design/methodology/approach – In this paper, the authors explain how a conference focused on
leadership development for LGBTQþ health trainees can have benefits for trainees, patients and the health-
care system. The authors also report the conference proceedings, including planning, participants, guiding
principles and programming.
Originality/value – This conference was the first conference for LGBTQþ health trainees focused
specifically on leadership training. The authors believe that the conference was unique, and that such training
represents an essential step toward long-term improvements in the health of LGBTQþ people and other
populations.
Keywords Health leadership competencies, Health leadership initiatives, Leadership,
Health services
Paper type Viewpoint
Introduction
Leadership training is a concept that is commonly discussed in many health-care settings
but that can be challenging to define. Although leadership training can be described in Leadership in Health Services
many ways, most definitions relate to the process of helping individuals develop skills to Vol. 33 No. 2, 2020
pp. 113-124
successfully perform in leadership positions. In addition to positions that may be viewed as © Emerald Publishing Limited
1751-1879
“traditional” leadership roles (e.g. deans, department chairs and hospital administrators), DOI 10.1108/LHS-09-2019-0062
LHS leadership positions in health care also include roles within advocacy, research, private
33,2 sector, policy and community organizations. Leadership also exists informally, when
individuals who do not hold formal management roles function as leaders within their
organizations. The emphasis on leadership training is not surprising given its potential
benefits, ranging from optimizing organizational efficiency to improving patient care and
outcomes (Angood and Birk, 2014; Sklar, 2018).
114 Although many programs have arisen to provide leadership training for medical
students, residents and faculty, many of these programs have limitations: these programs
often limit scope to a small population or a single institution, exclude health-care
professionals other than physicians, or teach skills that are not matched for the participants’
current and near-future roles (Dickerman et al., 2018; Maddalena, 2016; Matthews et al., 2018;
Rotenstein et al., 2019; Wagenschutz et al., 2019). Another important limitation of these
programs is that they may not address the unique facets of leading while also holding one or
more under-represented identities in medicine, such as race/ethnicity, gender identity, sexual
orientation, socioeconomic status, nationality, or physical ability. The importance of
diversifying leadership and related training has been described, but efforts at implementing
this imperative have been slow to take effect and largely focus on issues of gender (Schor,
2018; Nivet, 2011; Spalluto et al., 2017). National dialogue within academic medicine has
recently emphasized the importance of racial and ethnic diversity in leadership, with
programs such as the Association of American Medical College (AAMC) Minority Faculty
Leadership Development Seminars [Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC),
2019]. However, leadership programs designed for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and
queer (LGBTQþ) individuals in health care are virtually nonexistent (Fassinger et al., 2010).
In addition to these limitations, another important drawback of existing leadership
training programs is that when individuals holding under-represented identities are
groomed for leadership positions, these development efforts are often undertaken with the
goal of addressing health issues related to the under-represented identity. For example, a
trainee who identifies as gay may be trained with the assumption that they will hold a
leadership role related to LGBTQþ health issues, rather than being trained with the goal of
preparing LGBTQþ people for leadership positions to address the broader aim of improving
health care overall. Given the well-documented health disparities faced by LGBTQþ people,
this approach is not surprising; however, it may not provide the most effective long-term
strategy for improving the health of LGBTQþ people and other populations.
At our institution, we recognized and worked to address these gaps in leadership
training by hosting a conference called Q-Forward: Building LGBTQþ Leaders in Health
care, first titled “Q-Med” and hosted at Yale University from March 30-31, 2019. Q-Forward
was the first conference designed primarily for LGBTQþ health trainees focused
specifically on leadership development. The authors of this report include the co-chairs and
leadership partner of the Yale School of Medicine Dean’s Advisory Council on LGBTQþ
Affairs, which sponsored and planned the conference. In this article, our objectives are:
to articulate the critical importance of LGBTQþ leadership training; and
to report the conference proceedings from the 2019 Q-Forward conference.
Participants
171 individuals attended the conference. Participants included medical students (44 per
cent), faculty (10 per cent), undergraduates (8 per cent), residents and fellows (7 per cent),
nursing students (6 per cent), public health students (6 per cent), other graduate students (5
per cent), licensed providers (5 per cent), researchers/research assistants (4 per cent),
physician associate (PA) students (1 per cent), and other individuals (4 per cent). At least 38
institutions were represented, and attendees came from three countries (United States,
Canada, Brazil). Geographically, 80.7 per cent of attendees were from the Northeast, 6.8
per cent from the Midwest, 5 per cent from the Northwest, 2.5 per cent from the Southeast,
2.5 per cent from the Southwest and 2.5 per cent from outside of the United States. Most, but
not all, attendees identified as LGBTQþ.
Guiding principles
Several underlying principles guided our conference planning process and supported our
vision for the conference. First, to ensure that the conference would be widely accessible to
health professional trainees, we did not charge a registration fee. We also created a student
hosting program to reduce housing costs, and provided travel assistance for certain
attendees demonstrating financial need. We recognized that many potential attendees would
not have financial support from their institutions to attend the conference – and that these
same attendees may have been unable to attend other LGBTQþ-focused conferences in the
past due to financial constraints – and therefore believed it was important to take measures
to optimize affordability for the conference.
Second, sessions were designed to be interactive and skill-oriented. We wanted
participants to leave each session with concrete skills or ideas for next steps that they could
employ at their own institutions and in their future careers as leaders, and we strove to make
these goals clear for each session. The session formats were designed to be interactive,
which supported this aim. Attendees had the opportunity to submit questions and
comments in real-time, and most sessions began with discussion or reflections based on
these questions, ultimately creating an ongoing dialogue.
Third, we wove the concept of intersectionality into our programming. Intersectionality
emphasizes the overlap between various types of identities an individual may hold. To
incorporate intersectionality into our conference programming, we invited speakers who
could address these issues. These identities extended beyond sexual orientation and gender
identity, and included race, socioeconomic status, physical ability, incarceration history,
nationality, religion, and others. Intersectionality was addressed in sessions such as “Why
LHS should LGBTQ leadership be concerned about state violence in LGBTQ communities of
33,2 color?” and was stressed in many of the comments and questions submitted by attendees
throughout the conference.
Fourth, we made this conference an explicitly interdisciplinary conference. Although
many LGBTQþ health events have traditionally focused on the physician community, we
felt it was important to include a broader cross-section of the health-care community. We
118 determined that this approach would be appropriate both given the conference’s emphasis
on leadership and because of the potential for interdisciplinary dialogue to enrich the
conference content. In addition to including an interdisciplinary set of conference attendees,
our speakers and workshop leaders represented several professions, including those with
the following degrees: DNP, JD, MBA, MD, MPH, PA, and PhD.
Finally, we sought to involve the New Haven community. We recognized the complex
dynamics between Yale University (Q-Forward’s hosting institution) and the New Haven
community, and also that the ultimate goal of our work was to improve the health of
patients. We therefore understood the importance of including our local community in the
conference. We achieved this goal by inviting community members to lead workshops,
inviting local community members to display their artwork at our conference, and hosting
an evening social event at a queer-owned restaurant with a performance by members from
the local Pride center.
Future directions
As we plan for the future of Q-Forward, we have considered several logistical questions.
First, we envision the conference to be annual. Although we considered a biennial
conference, we decided against this option because some participants may be in training
LHS programs lasting only two to three years and because we believe that the need for LGBTQþ
33,2 leadership training is strong enough to justify an annual conference. Additional future plans
include location (possibly rotating between multiple institutions interested in hosting the
conference) and format (feedback from participants indicated a strong interest in the
conference involving a collective effort toward a project with a concrete deliverable). We also
plan to survey attendees to understand whether and how they have employed the skills they
120 learned at Q-Forward, which will support our efforts to continually refine the conference
content.
Feedback and observations from the conference have guided the planning process for the
second iteration of the conference. For example, because many attendees reported that they
have an interest in further exploring activism as a form of leadership, the second conference
will include two sessions on LGBTQþ activism in health care: one led by a historian and
one led by an experienced activist. Additionally, there will be multiple sessions focused on
race and racism in medicine, given the productive dialogue on this topic at the first
conference, the well-established racial disparities in health care, and the importance of this
topic to effective leadership. Finally, because many attendees expressed an interest in
leadership through research, there will be workshops focused on developing research skills.
We are also planning for conference sustainability. From a financial perspective,
sustaining a conference can be challenging. Our conference benefited from substantial
financial and administrative support from our institution’s medical school. For future
iterations of the conference, we plan to engage the many stakeholders within our institution
who may have an interest in the development of LGBTQþ leaders, including other health
professional schools and the university. There are also other LGBTQþ organizations –
within the university and in our local community – that may be interested in sponsoring
some aspects of the event. From a human resources perspective, we recognize the
considerable time and energy required to maintain an annual conference. One strategy to
address this challenge is engaging a wide-ranging group of individuals invested in the
mission and success of the conference. Because the conference is national in scope and not
regionally or locally restricted, we have the ability to recruit and include a broad group of
collaborators. Over the long-term, we hope that the conference design will increase the pool
of LGBTQþ people engaged in leadership, since it includes all LGBTQþ people in health
care rather than only targeting those interested in serving LGBTQþ patients.
Conclusion
Q-Forward was an innovative and first-of-its-kind conference with a mission to train the
next generation of LGBTQþ leaders in policy, research, clinical care, and education. While
there are several national and regional LGBTQþ-focused health-care conferences,
Q-Forward was the first to explicitly structure the conference content around developing
leadership skills. This approach invited a diverse group of students in health care to
participate in a unique set of opportunities designed to appeal to those that may be working
directly to eliminate health disparities within the LGBTQþ community, those that may face
discrimination as providers in the health-care system, and those that want to develop
leadership skills in a supportive environment that acknowledges and embraces their
identities. We believe this structure and focus accurately reflect, acknowledge, encourage,
and celebrate the many varied ways that LGBTQþ individuals contribute to the health-care
system. There are many potential benefits from our conference, including increased
presence and visibility of LGBTQþ health-care leaders, a strengthened pipeline of future
LGBTQþ leaders, improved awareness of structural inequities leading to LGBTQþ stigma
and discrimination, and increased resilience among trainees. Approximately 30 per cent of
registrants for the second iteration of Q-Forward attended the first conference, which we
view to be a strong indication that attendees found the conference to be a valuable Leadership
experience. We hope that Q-Forward will train, empower, and inspire motivated future
leaders to change the culture of health care, which can ultimately improve care for all .
training
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Corresponding author
Michael T. Solotke can be contacted at: michael.solotke@yale.edu
Appendix
Leadership
training
Saturday, March 30, 2019
7:30 am Registration and breakfast
8:45 am Welcome and introduction
9:00 am History of LGBTQþ leaders in health care
9:40 am Defining LGBTQþ leadership 123
10:15 am Keynote address
11:15 am Lunch
12:45 pm Panel discussion: questions for LGBTQIþ leaders in health care
1:55 pm Panel discussion: how to be out while applying
5:00 pm Social/networking event
Sunday, March 31, 2019
7:30 am Breakfast
8:30 am Why should LGBTQ leadership be concerned about state violence in LGBTQ
communities of color?
9:10 am How health-care leaders interface with government
10:00 am Workshop session #1
11:30 am Lunch
12:30 pm Workshop session #2 Table AI.
2:10 pm Health-care leaders in law and policy Q-Forward
2:40 pm Closing conference agenda
LHS Workshop title Description
33,2
Dealing with Difficult Moments: Everyday Acts of This workshop focused on three primary topics:
Diversity and Inclusion What does it feel like to have “a sense of humor”?
How do we understand the difference between
intention and impact?
Why does “resilience” matter?
124 What a Journalist Can Teach You About This workshop involved three components:
Communicating Better Putting together a mock news segment with a CNN
producer
Answering the question, “How do health care
professionals communicate differently from patients
and the media?”
Learning the different elements of a news story, how
different topics end up in the media, and why this
matters for being a leader in health care
Student Leadership and Curriculum Building This workshop was a facilitated discussion about
student involvement with curriculum design and
implementation, structured around six key elements:
Assessing curricular needs
Identifying and gaining cooperation from key
stakeholders
Designing curricular material
Ensuring institutionalization of curriculum
Evaluating curriculum and sharing results
Curriculum design principles
Art and Self-Care The presenter incorporated his experience as an
artist and author to engage participants in a session
about:
Leveraging the power of positive thinking
Utilizing effective self-care
Learning how to develop compassion, kindness, and
empathy toward patients and oneself
Transgender Healthcare This workshop included:
Discussion of the evolution of transgender health
over the last 30 years
Conversation about the future of transgender health
care
Opportunities for health-care providers to learn and
provide transgender health care
Description of the growth and evolution of one
particular health clinic for gender minority patients
Speaking Up, Speaking Out: Bystander Training This workshop was structured around cases
with a Focus on Sexual and Gender Minorities in involving LGBTQþ patients and/or providers, and
Medicine involved:
Facilitated discussion about disrespectful and
discriminatory behaviors and situations in clinical
and classroom settings
Exploration of how trainees may encourage more
Table AII: inclusive and supportive behaviors
Summary of Emphasis on ways that trainees may intervene
Q-Forward effectively in light of their position within the health
workshops care and learning environments