Medical School Launches Transgender Nursing Program, Cites Women's Need for Prostate Exams

Transgender people pining to be nursed can soon get gratified in a novel way.

When it comes to keeping up with social evolution, Columbia University is nothing nearing a slouch. In fact, its nursing school has launched a new program aimed at contemporary “inclusion.”

Interested parties can now earn their degree in “Transgender Non-Binary Health Care for Advanced Practice Nurses and PAs.”

On its site, the school offers a descriptor:

Columbia University School of Nursing’s Certificate in Professional Achievement (CPA) in Transgender Non-Binary (Trans NB) Health Care for Advance Practice Nurses and PAs is designed for advanced practice nurses and physician assistants to advance their knowledge and skills to provide quality care to trans NB people. The program prepares advanced practice nurses and physician assistants to support the health of trans NB people along the continuum of care and formulate a care plan that addresses follow-up, ongoing care, and preventative screening. The program also prepares clinicians to integrate mental health in the care of trans-people and their families.

Columbia explains the track is offered “completely online in a synchronous and asynchronous format.” The reason: “To reach the widest audience and to assist in preparing a workforce of clinicians accessible to trans NB people regardless of geographic location.”

The 12 required credits are listed as follows:

NURS7400N
Health Assessment of Transgender Non-Binary (Trans NB) Individuals

NURS7402N
Mental Health Needs of Transgender Non-Binary (Trans NB) People

NURS7410N
Clinical Practicum in Transgender Non- Binary (Trans NB) Health

NURS7411N
Seminar in Transgender Non- Binary (Trans NB) Health

NURS7401N
Treatment Interventions for Transgender Non-Binary (Trans NB) Individuals

In March of last year, the school issued a release championing the “first-ever” initiative of its kind:

Health care providers receive scant training on transgender care; [Laura Kelly, PhD, an associate professor of nursing and director of the Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Program] estimates nurses get about an hour’s worth of instruction on caring for LGBT patients in total. “Even if you’re on the East or West Coast, the care for trans folks is lacking,” she says.

In a 2017 poll, 31% of trans people reported not having regular access to health care, and 22% said they avoided doctors due to fear of discrimination.

Access to affirming health care can be a matter of life and death. Transgender people are at increased risk of suicide, while gender-affirming treatment sharply reduces this risk.

Also needed by those wishing to be viewed by gender, not sex: care based on sex, not gender. A trans woman might have trouble with her testicles. Or north of her penis, something more sinister may lurk.

Trans people may also need to undergo the preventive care required for their biological sex, for example prostate cancer screening for those born male.

The demand is dominating the supply:

To address the scarcity of clinicians trained to treat trans patients, Columbia Nursing is launching the first-ever Certificate in Professional Achievement in Transgender/Gender Non-Binary Health Care for Nurse Practitioners this September. “We are committed to having only transgender faculty teaching the CPA program. Currently, the program has four faculty members who are seasoned nurse practitioners and identify as transgender,” says Kelly…

Back to the course list, “treatment interventions” will involve the following:

Writing Letters of Support

Sexual Health

Fertility

Hormone Therapy

Gender Affirming Surgical Care

Pubertal Suppression

Medicine has managed a scientific swerve:

Breastfeeding Academy Bails on ‘Breasts’

UCLA Medical Symposium Demands Doctors Accommodate People Who Aren’t Men or Women

To Be Inclusive of Non-Binary Parents, Hospitals Nix the Terms ‘Breast Milk’ and ‘Father’

‘The Practising Midwife’ Magazine Releases Transgender Issue Featuring Bearded Birthing Parent

Hospitals Are Starting to Ask Men if They’re Pregnant

University Schools Midwifery Students on the Handling of the Birthing Penis

“Gender identity” aside, if you doubt the hands-on anatomical arena has changed:

'Nonbinary Gender Affirming' Doctors Offer Sexual 'Nullification' Surgery
https://t.co/lTNxG1zudN

— RedState (@RedState) May 28, 2021

Even so, as noted by Campus Reform, not everyone’s on the same page. In 2015, Johns Hopkins Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry Dr. Paul McHugh asserted thusly:

“[G]ender dysphoria…belongs in the family of similarly disordered assumptions about the body, such as anorexia nervosa and body dysmorphic disorder.”

He’s not for the knife:

“[Gender dysphoria] treatment should not be directed at the body as with surgery and hormones any more than one treats obesity-fearing anorexic patients with liposuction. The treatment should strive to correct the false, problematic nature of the assumption and to resolve the psychosocial conflicts provoking it. With youngsters, this is best done in family therapy.”

Despite Paul’s position, industry leaders — like climate change combatants — appear to have surmised “the science is settled.”

So how will Columbia’s program fare? Only time will tell.

One thing is certain, and it underpins the evident thinking behind the new certificate: Some patients aren’t like the others…

Could it be the ultimate Saturday story?

Man's Penis Falls Off, Doctor Adds One to His Armhttps://t.co/YaWwWkohQM

— Alex Parker (@alexparker1984) July 31, 2021