Happy Pride Month!
What is Pride Month? Pride Month is the entire month of June, when the world’s LGBTQ communities come together to commemorate, recognize, and inspire those who have helped fight for and positively impacted the rights of the LGBTQ community.
This is a special month for me, not only because my birthday is June 12, but because I am a member of the LGBTQ community. I am a gay male.
Growing up, I was always super anxious about going to see a medical professional. I wanted to make sure they did not know I was gay because society had impressed on me that being gay was wrong. I withheld information from my doctors and opted out of procedures due to my fear of being discriminated against or in some way, hurt.
Being scared to seek medical treatment due to fear of judgement or fear of harm is a very big issue facing members of the LGBTQ community today. Imagine going to see your doctor and being scared the whole time that you are going to be judged, or even that care is going to be withheld from you just because of who you are. That is a very scary situation and can be even scarier if you’re dealing with a potentially life-threatening issue.
We as medical professionals take oaths not to discriminate against anyone. It is our job to help everyone who is in need; we do not get to pick and choose. We communicate with our patients regularly to keep an open dialogue that stimulates trust between the patient and medical professional.
At Schumacher & Bauer, we do not judge. We are EVERYTHING friendly, whether you are gay, straight, bi, trans, a dog — we accept everyone for who they are and do not discriminate. We communicate with our patients, keep their information private, and we help them while fostering a welcoming environment. Everyone in our office is extremely open minded, and we are all allies no matter where you fall on the spectrum.
Come see me and let me clean your teeth so we can talk about what you did for Pride and where the best places are to eat. I can enter you into our new patient raffle, we can talk about sports, or you can even just sit and relax while someone cleans your teeth. ????
I am attaching a link for anyone who needs it. The link is from the Ohio State University website and it has a list of LGBTQ friendly medical professionals, like eye doctors, dentists, family doctors, etc.
https://u.osu.edu/lgbtqhealthresourcescolumbus/healthcare-provider-lists/
No one should be denied healthcare because of who they are. I’m proud that Schumacher & Bauer is EVERYTHING friendly.
Author: Jake Hanely
Jake is a recent graduate of Columbus State in Dental Hygiene, May 2017. He was born and raised in Columbus and in his spare time spends time with his niece and nephew.
