The Free World Experience Report – LGBTQI+ health on the spot

This article was exclusively written for The European Sting by Daniel Gregorio Gonsalves, Ana Beatriz Bonini Parsekian, Guilherme Rainier Ventura, Julia Gabas and Juliana Nakamoto Murari, students of the Faculty o Medicine of Catanduva (FAMECA) and members of the International Federation of Medical Students Associations of Brazil. They are affiliated to the International Federation of Medical Students Associations (IFMSA), cordial partner of The Sting. The opinions expressed in this piece belong strictly to the writers and do not necessarily reflect IFMSA’s view on the topic, nor The European Sting’s one.

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Through the history, the LGBT community – lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders – have suffered from a vulnerability to access the health system due to its stigmatization and prejudice^1,2. This shouldn’t happen because the right of health is guaranteed in the Constitution since 1988 in Brazil for everyone. There is a National Policy of Humanization since 2003 called HumanizaSUS which values the Brazilian National Health System (SUS) principles: equity, universality and integrality³. Considering the social determinants that influence in health, there is an important one that is sexuality. Noted this importance and their difficulty to reach SUS, the government created a specific public policy to reduce the access barriers of the LGBT community called National Policy of Integral Health of LGBT in 2013⁴. However, the achievement to the system still challenging and to change this reality this subject must be discussed in medical schools. Therefore, we decided to realize the event “The Free World Project” to introduce the theme for the academics. The event “The Free World Project”, organized by 5 local coordinators of IFMSA Brazil FAMECA and LGBT collective Carvalho da Gama, supported by the LGBT City Counsil and the study group about LGBT rights, took place at University Center Padre Albino (UNIFIPA), campus São Francisco auditorium – Catanduva, SP, on May 29, 2019, from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m. 180 openings were available online and at the event. We had 114 participants, mostly law and medical students. The event, structured as a multidisciplinary roundtable, was attended by four speakers. Ana Beatriz Parsekian, medical student, approached how medicine can help the LGBTQI+ population. Then, Telma Abrahão, psychologist, exposed about the psichology implications on health care of LGBTQI+. Mario Quiudini, law student, spoke the state of the art on LGBTQI+ legislation. Carla Mendes, transexual and sex professional, talked as a user of the Brazilian Unified Health System (hereby SUS). At the time, one questionnaire was carried out with the participants, in order to evaluate their profile, knowledge about the theme, impact of the project approach on them and get a feedback of our event. We had 73 answers, on which: 41 were law (56%), 19 medical (26%) and 9 physical education students (12%); 4 other courses (5%). If they had any orientation about LGBTQI+ population while in graduation: only 40 (55%) had, 32 (80%) of them extracurricular and only 8 (20%) had it curricular based. 53 (72%) doesn’t feel ready to help the LGBTQI+ public with their health demands and all of the participants agreed that it should have a better spot in their graduation. Thus, the importance of an event that LGBTQI+ health is debated is evident, on a so diverse society that still have prejudice in-between. Furthermore, the open discussion allowed everyone to learn more about the problematics that a person of that group suffers as a minority: discrimination and misunderstanding. The questionnaire and the event together bring up the necessity of new debates on curricular grades, mainly on human-related university courses. REFERENCES 1 CartaCapital [internet homepage]. CartaCapital estreia blog de saúde LGBT. Por que falar sobre isso? [cited 22 jun 2019]. Available from <https://www.cartacapital.com.br/blogs/saudelgbt/cartacapital-estreia-blog-de-saude-lgbt-por-que-falar-sobre-isso/> 2 Cardoso MR, Ferro LF. Health And LGBT Community: Needs And Specificities Under DiscussIon. PSICOLOGIA: CIÊNCIA E PROFISSÃO, 2012, 32 (3), 552-563. Available from <http://www.scielo.br/pdf/pcp/v32n3/v32n3a03.pdf> 3 Ministério da Saúde [internet homepage]. Política Nacional de Humanização – HumanizaSUS. [cited 22 jun 2019]. Available from <http://www.saude.gov.br/saude-de-a-z/projeto-lean-nas-emergencias/693-acoes-e-programas/40038-humanizasus> 4 Brasil. Ministério da Saúde. Secretaria de Gestão Estratégica e Participativa. Departamento de Apoio à Gestão Participativa. Política Nacional de Saúde Integral de Lésbicas, Gays, Bissexuais, Travestis e Transexuais / Ministério da Saúde, Secretaria de Gestão Estratégica e Participativa, Departamento de Apoio à Gestão Participativa. Brasília: 1. ed.,1. reimp. Ministério da Saúde, 2013. Available from <http://bvsms.saude.gov.br/bvs/publicacoes/politica_nacional_saude_lesbicas_gays.pdf> About the author Daniel Gregorio Gonsalves, Ana Beatriz Bonini Parsekian, Guilherme Rainieri Ventura, Julia Gabas and Juliana Nakamoto Murari are students of the Faculty of Medicine of Catanduva (FAMECA) and members of the International Federation of Medical Students Associations of Brazil. They jointly coordinated a local initiative of SCORA’s national project called “The Free World Project”. These students, from different periods of the graduation, have united for a common goal: to demonstrate the relationship of medicine and the LGBTQI+ question.