Episode 14: Gender Diversity

The sun rises over the San Joaquin Valley, California, today is May 29, 2020.

Did you know that educational attainment has been demonstrated to be a strong predictor of health outcomes, including obesity and age of death?(1) That should be a motivation to continue educating yourself, for instance, you can listen to this podcast while you go for a walk around your block… what a great combination! If increasing your health is not enough to motivate you to listen, what if we offer you money? You’ll be surprised at the end of this episode.

Summer is now in full swing. Many of our patients continue to work, or even may have more work, during this season. 

According to Mayo Clinic nephrologist William Haley, heat and lack of proper hydration lead to a higher prevalence of nephrolithiasis in the summer. It’s good to remember that kidney stones between 5-10 mm have a higher passing rate, and tamsulosin may facilitate this process. You would need to treat five patients with kidney stones 5-10 mm to get one stone passage. Stones larger than 10 mm are less likely to pass and may require urology consult. So, this summer, remind your patients to stay well hydrated.

Welcome to Rio Bravo qWeek, the podcast of the Rio Bravo Family Medicine Residency Program, recorded weekly from Bakersfield, California, the land where growing is happening everywhere.

The Rio Bravo Family Medicine Residency Program trains residents and students to prevent illnesses and bring health and hope to our community. Our mission: To Seek, Teach and Serve. 

Sponsored by Clinica Sierra Vista, Providing compassionate and affordable care to patients throughout Kern and Fresno counties since 1971.[Music continues and fades…] 

“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.” –Maya Angelou.

Passion, compassion, humor, and style(4) —that sounds like a good combination to thrive. Residency is a very special time of your life. Enjoy it! We have a very special resident today. Claudia Carranza was interviewed in Episode 11 “Chlamydia with Clau”, so you probably remember her. That’s why I will change the first question.  

1. Question Number 1: Claudia tell us something random about you. 

My husband and I have a dog, we bought a house in Bakersfield, and I love dancing hip-hop, merengue, and zumba.

1. Question number 2: What did you learn this week? 

This week I learned about what gender identity truly means. I am embarrassed to admit it but although I

think of myself as a very open minded and respectful person, I did not really understand the difference

between gender expression, gender identity, etc. 

I was watching “Becoming”, Michelle Obama’s documentary. At the very end they had young adults introducing themselves and one person said “I’m non-binary”, and then it hit me. Do I, a resident physician, really understand how I would address or refer to a nonbinary patient? And the answer was NO. 

Today I will introduce these concepts in a simple way so we better understand them.

Definition of gender and more

Gender is assigned at birth based on genitalia and chromosomes; male and female which would be the “assigned gender” at birth.

Gender identity is the innate sense of feeling male, female, neither or a bit of both. There is research

with regards to gender identity and how the main drive of it is in the brain. I did have a professor in

medical school who had done research for many years in mice; he studied the brain and different

components. One of his research topics focused on how sex genes/hormones change during

development of an embryo/fetus and, to put i