University of Utah Health Hosts 2nd Annual Sex & Gender Health Education Summit

University of Utah Health, along with co-sponsoring organizations the American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA), The Laura W Bush Institute for Women’s Health, and The Mayo Clinic will present the 2018 Sex and Gender Health Education (SGHE) Summit, April 8-10 in Salt Lake City. 

The SGHE Summit, the second gathering of its kind, is charged with expanding multi-disciplinary opportunities by convening health education leaders from five major professions – medicine, nursing, pharmacy, dentistry, and allied health. The goal of the conference is to support and progress the integration of sex and gender differences into health professionals’ education. Over 250 physicians, PhD’s, Pharm.D’s, nurses, dental faculty, alliance health and medical curricula specialists from across the country will be in attendance.

Sex and gender based medicine (SGBM) is defined as the practice of medicine based on the understanding that biology and social factors have important implications for prevention, screening, diagnosis, and treatment. Research has demonstrated that biological differences between men and women translate into difference in the prevalence, manifestation and response to treatment of a variety of diseases, including coronary heart disease, autoimmune diseases and obesity.  However, these differences have still not routinely been incorporated into medical curricula and research.

The understanding that sex impacts more than reproduction has brought greater attention to sex influences on clinical outcomes and research approaches. For example, in neurosciences, sex impacts pain reporting and differences in how neuroactive agents operate. Some drugs are metabolized differently in women and men - necessitating considerations of sex for dosing.

“As our understanding about gender specific differences in clinical outcomes has expanded, we have moved from the concept of women’s health to gender specific medicine,” said Ana Maria Lopez, MD, Associate Vice President of Health, Equity, and Inclusion for University of Utah Health and executive committee member for SGHE. “We now understand that sex is a biological variable that needs to be considered in the design, analysis, and reporting of  study outcomes.”

Marjorie Jenkins, MD, Associate Dean for Women in Science at The Laura W. Bush Institute for Women’s Health, will be presenting at SGHE. She focuses on sex and gender differences in medicine. Jenkins stated, “Sex and Gender Medicine and the evidence that men and women have unique health needs must be taught to our next generation of providers, because everyone loses when one-sex gender-blind healthcare is delivered.”

“The Sex and Gender Health Education Summit is providing opportunities for better health by discussing approaches to interprofessional education on sex and gender in health,” Lopez said. “University of Utah Health is thrilled to join with our co-sponsors in leading the charge to continue this important dialogue -- furthering the development of comprehensive sex and gender medical education curricula across disciplines.”