Vanderbilt Medical Center opening ‘transgender health’ clinic
The Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) will open a new clinic this month that caters exclusively to “transgender health.”
“The multispecialty clinic provides comprehensive health care services for transgender patients age 18 and older allowing them to receive their care in one location, including primary care and subspecialty consultations with endocrinologists, mental health experts, and surgeons,” VUMC announced Tuesday, noting that services offered at the clinic will include “hormone therapy, lab monitoring, and pre- and post-operative guidance.”
The clinic also “plans to add a mental health provider” to supplement those services, but will not have one at the time of its opening.
When it opens on August 24, the clinic will reside in VUMC’s established walk-in clinic in Tennessee and operate primarily by appointment on Friday afternoons from 1:00-5:00 p.m. However, Focus Middle Tennessee reports that the center plans to move to its own location in early 2019, which will allow it to expand its hours.
Friday afternoon clinics “will be reserved specifically for transgender health care,” but VUMC notes that medical director Shayne Sebold Taylor, MD will “provide comprehensive primary care to LGBT patients during regular clinic hours, Monday through Friday, offering preventive medicine such as immunizations, HIV prevention, and cancer screening with special attention given to nutrition, healthy lifestyle, and chronic disease management. “
