A Necessary Transition: Gender-Affirming Healthcare

For some students, a scholarship award is a gift of time. Bearing fewer financial burdens, students like Eli Goldberg MD’20 can explore pursuits that matter to them, and to the greater community. Goldberg, a recipient of the William C. Street MD’59 and Lorraine Hassan-Street Endowed Scholarship and the Harry Howe, M.D.'52 & Theo Howe Scholarship, spent that time as a UVM medical student advocating for more gender-affirming healthcare for transgender and gender non-conforming patients. He was a co-leader of the Larner College of Medicine’s Gender & Sexuality Alliance and a three-time presenter at the annual Translating Identity Conference in Burlington. He also helped develop a transgender inclusion training for the UVM Medical Center’s Women’s Services staff.

Goldberg, a native of Shelburne, Vermont, has navigated the healthcare system both as a trans patient and now as a family medicine resident at the Medical Center. He says that, for many trans people, access to gender-affirming healthcare is critical to improved mental health, functionality, and overall quality of life. But he believes system-wide education and improvements are necessary to accommodate trans patients, no matter what type of healthcare and treatment they are seeking. “Trans people seeing two different doctors in the same practice may have really different experiences trying to access the same kind of care,” he says, “and I think that is a problem that needs to be fixed.”

As he looks ahead to practicing in Vermont, Goldberg says he’d like trans healthcare to remain a focal point of his career. “I think there’s a lot of power that comes from just being at the table as a trans doctor, and helping other doctors to see trans people as colleagues in addition to just patients.”