Columbian College has launched a new graduate certificate program in LGBT health to train current and future healthcare leaders and policy advocates on issues relating to the health and well-being of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. The program is geared toward the growing need for healthcare and policy professionals to address challenges faced by the LGBT population.
The LGBT Health Graduate Certificate Program, which will enroll its first students in June of this year, will encompass a set of courses focused on issues ranging from the psychological and medical to legal and policy-based. The hybrid curriculum of on-campus and online offerings will include contemporary topics, such as transgender care, marriage equality, and advocacy for underserved populations.
“The creation of this graduate certificate demonstrates GW’s commitment to educating a work force to be both dexterous and empathetic to our diverse society,” said Columbian College Dean Peg Barratt. “With the recent and upcoming changes in health care and debate over policies relating to marriage, there is a great need for a program of this nature.”
While housed in CCAS, the program will also draw on faculty from the Milken Institute School of Public Health as well as guest lecturers from the LGBT field.
“I am excited that we are offering this unique program, the first-of-its-kind in applied LGBT health,” said Stephen Forssell, director of the program and faculty member in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. “Not only will it provide an opportunity for discourse on the disparities faced by the LGBT community, it will also focus on strategies to move the field forward toward a more inclusive, equitable state.”