Dear Editor

Inclusion of the sexual and gender minority (SGM) community health competencies is one of the pressing fields in medical education to promote equitable and quality healthcare service regardless of discrimination due to gender or sexual orientation. The same is emphasized in the recent article by Karsenti et al., which states there is an optimistic trend in the attitudes of students towards caring for SGM patients and they are willing to get additional training on SGM-specific healthcare. Supporting the conclusions drawn in the article, this letter provides a recommendation to incorporate outreach programmes to promote community-based education in SGM health benefiting students as well as SGM patients [1].

Lately, there has been an increase in the implementation of SGM-specific education into medical curricula to train medical students and medical practitioners in offering an inclusive, accessible, equitable and quality healthcare service. But this training is mostly implemented as the inclusion of SGM-specific health competencies into the medical curriculum and improving the awareness of medical students and doctors through lectures or small group discussions.

As a conventional practice, simulated or standardised patients may not be able to deliver sensitive and complex mental, emotional, physical and social concerns as experienced by SGM patients. Thus, training and exposure through direct encounters with SGM patients is a major gap in contemporary medical education. To overcome this, educators can plan and organize outreach programmes in the curricula consisting of periodic visits to SGM communities where medical students get an opportunity to get trained in effectively communicating with SGM patients, understanding their hardships, and establishing a good doctor-patient relationship.

This community-based education holds vast scope in medical education. This enhances SGM health education by raising awareness, engaging with SGM communities, addressing stigma, fostering cultural competency, building trust, identifying community-specific needs, collaborating with organizations, enhancing curricula, and advocating for policy change thereby improving patient outcomes. Furthermore, when effectively put into practice globally, this will also serve as a major step towards attaining the Sustainable Development Goal of good health and well-being [2].