School of Nursing Newsroom

Health care providers must take the initiative to educate themselves about the cultures and distinct health needs of the diverse populations they serve, says Cizik School of Nursing at UTHealth Houston PhD student Aaron Loeb, MSN, MBA, RN-BC. His research focuses on building cultural competence to care for LGBTQ populations, a very diverse group in and of itself.

“My interest is in making processes better for health outcomes, and mainly I think that is through education, professional development, and engagement,” Loeb said.

His experience in health care began in high school, when he volunteered in the occupational therapy department of a hospital for some 350 hours. Loeb began learning health care skills with U.S. Army medical clinic training while stationed in South Korea. Upon discharge, he worked as a home health assistant and earned his Bachelor of Science in Nursing from The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. He also holds master’s degrees in business administration and nursing education from Texas Woman’s University in Houston.

Loeb is the lead author of a paper recently published in老年护理titled “Coping and healthcare utilization in LGBTQ older adults: A systematic review.” The paper summarizes research on the coping techniques that aging LGBTQ patients employ to counter real or anticipated discrimination, and how those mechanisms can affect access to and efficacy of health care.

“I have certainly experienced discrimination and stigma in health care as a patient and working as a nurse,” Loeb said. “I didn’t realize I was being treated differently than others until I started this research. I thought it was normal, but I knew it wasn’t comfortable.”

年长的LGBTQ患者从艾滋病开始到婚姻平等，目睹了历史性事件，但许多人担心披露其性或性别认同，甚至是卫生提供者。在方程式的另一端，提供者通常不知道与性实践或性别认同有关的特定医疗保健需求。

Loeb, who is board certified in nursing professional development, has served in several related roles at Houston-area organizations, including Texas Children’s Hospital. He ultimately would like to consult with organizations to develop customized programs to help systemically improve cultural humility and competence.

However, Loeb stresses health care providers’ responsibility to actively seek out opportunities to develop their own knowledge of the diverse groups they serve, regardless of whether those differences are based on race, gender, ethnicity, or other factors.

作为卫生保健提供者,really on me to understand more about culturally diverse populations, and in my case, I’m choosing LGBTQ,” Loeb said. “It’s not like we are learning about some rare disease that you are never going to see. This potentially impacts anyone coming in the door at any moment.”

Loeb credits Cizik School of Nursing faculty members with helping him gain the perspective and skills needed to tackle such a broad and complex avenue of research. ProfessorDiane Wardell, PhD, WHNP-BC和研究副院长beplay苹果手机能用吗Constance Johnson, PhD, MS, RN, FAAN，合着的老年护理纸.

“博士约翰逊（Johnson）是我的学术顾问，她一直在帮助我学习如何缩小话题以使其可以进行研究。”勒布说。beplay苹果手机能用吗“我认为这是一次有趣的旅程，我认为，如果不是Cizik护理学院的博士学位课程，我真的不明白如何将这些信息拼凑成分析水平。”