Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Gender Identity And Pronoun Usage In Standardized Patient Encounters, Martha M. Popescu, Emily J. Noonan, Laura A. Weingartner

Undergraduate Research Events

The standardized documentation clinicians use to record evaluations of a patient are called Subjective, Objective, Assessment, and Plan (SOAP) notes. Consistent pronoun documentation and usage in these notes is especially important for affirming transgender and gender non-conforming patients as this population experiences significant health disparities linked to medical mistrust. A sample of SOAP notes (n=286) was taken from standardized patient encounters at the University of Louisville School of Medicine in 2017 (n=137) and 2018 (n=149). There were five case iterations of the standardized patient based on gender identity. The notes were coded using the software Dedoose for the following themes: …