Episode 30: Things we don’t talk about (but should): The transgender experience in healthcare with Dr. Ben Haseen

Justin Steinman:
Definitively Speaking is a Definitive Healthcare Podcast series recorded and produced in Framingham, Massachusetts. To learn more about healthcare commercial intelligence, please visit us at definitivehc.com.
Hello and welcome to another episode of Definitively Speaking, the podcast where we have data-driven conversations on the current state of healthcare. I'm Justin Steinman, chief Marketing Officer at Definitive Healthcare and your host for this podcast. Having a doctor who understands us is something that many people take for granted. In fact, many people choose a primary care doctor based on how well they connect to the doctor or how many things they have in common, similar age, gender, religion, ethnicity, or other factors. Yet for some individuals, it can be very challenging to find a doctor who shares that background or someone who understands their individual clinical situation.
If you're transgender navigating the healthcare system, whether that's finding a primary care doctor, a mental health specialist, or really any kind of specialist can be especially challenging. To help us understand these challenges and how transgender individuals can better navigate the healthcare system, I've invited Dr. Ben Haseen to join me today on Definitively Speaking. And to top it off, June is LGBTQ+ Pride month. So having Ben on this show today feels like a great way to celebrate Pride month.
Dr. Haseen is an openly trans South Asian physician, author, and transgender health advocate of Bangladeshi descent who just graduated from the Morehouse School of Medicine and who is starting his medical residency at Duke University. He is the first in his family to attend college in the United States and the first to attend medical school. Since the start of his academic career, he has written works detailing his experiences being a transgender Muslim, growing up in marginalized neighborhoods in Atlanta, Georgia. Lastly, he has spearheaded multiple trans and queer health education resources, including a YouTube channel dedicated to transgender education and holding health workshops as part of the mutual aid efforts across Atlanta and the nation. I'd encourage y'all to check out the YouTube channel [inaudible 00:02:06]. It's quite cool. Ben, welcome to Definitively Speaking.

Ben Haseen:
Hello, everyone. I'm very happy to be here and happy to talk to you all about transgender health.

Justin Steinman:
We are happy to have you here. So before we get started, I want to welcome back a regular contributor to our podcast, Catherine Wright from our product management team here at Definitive Healthcare. Catherine, I'm so glad you could join us today what should be a fascinating conversation with Ben.

Catherine Wright:
Thank you for having me. And Ben, thanks for being here. And hey, congratulations on your recent match to Duke Psychiatry. That's incredibly exciting.

Ben Haseen:
Thank you so much. I'm very excited to start.

Justin Steinman:
Awesome. We'll have you back in a couple years to tell us all about what it's like. Well, we got a lot to talk about today.

Ben Haseen:
Absolutely.

Justin Steinman:
All right. So thanks again for joining, Catherine, the interview. Let's get going here. One thing I've always believed going back way back to my days as an undergraduate English major, is that language is powerful and it's important to get it right. Thus, I want to start with a very simple question to help orient our listeners to our discussion today. So can you explain for our audience what does it mean to be transgender?

Ben Haseen:
I'm glad you asked me this question because this question can be very multifaceted. I want to start off by saying that even though I'm a transgender individual, I don't represent the experiences of all trans people. It's always in my best effort to talk about in every single situation that although I advocate for trans people, I am not a monolith. So with that, I will address your question, what does it mean to be transgender? Usually trans people are those who are socialized in a certain gender from birth, but they believe that their gender identity doesn't align with that gender that they were assigned at and socialized with either by their parents or their community or their social groups.
So if I were to use myself as an example, I was assigned female at birth. So my parents decided to socialize me as a girl growing up. But at some point during my teenage years, I realized that's not who I was, and that my dreams, I was always a man and I always felt like a boy. So when I felt comfortable at the age of 21, I decided to start not just socially transition, but medically transition by taking hormones. I also really want to emphasize that a lot of people in this current discourse talk about being transgender as a very western concept, and I really want to emphasize that this is really not true because many countries outside the United States, beyond the western world, have third gender and gender diversity. Even in my home country of Bangladesh, the first time I actually had exposure to people with gender diverse identities was the Hijra community, which in South Asia are a group of people were assigned male at birth, but lived their lives as women. So gender diversity goes beyond western concept of what it means to be transgender.

Justin Steinman:
Got it. Yes, I want to get other clarification on here. You said social transition versus medical transition. What's the difference there? You got to clarify that for us.

Ben Haseen:
Yeah, absolutely. I know a lot of people have questions about this. So social transitioning is someone just realizing that, "Hey, the gender that I was socialized since I was a kid, let's say for me, I was socialized as a girl growing up, I don't see myself as that." So if I were to socially transition, if we go back to when I was 21 years old, I started telling my friends, I started telling my family, "Hey, I really think I'm a boy. I'm going to start wearing boys clothes. I'm going to start cutting my hair," just presenting myself with how I feel comfortable in my gender identity. So that's social transitioning. A lot of trans people just choose to socially transition. There is no requirement for someone to medically transition. So medical transition is when someone decides to take medications or have some form of procedure to align with their gender identity.
So around the age of 21, I sought out a primary care provider who gave me hormones. I started taking testosterone, and that's when I started my medical transition. And in addition to that, I also got gender-affirming surgery. I had a double mastectomy. Although I also really want to emphasize that medical transition doesn't mean you have to have every single procedure or you have to be on hormones forever, this is entirely dependent on you and your choices and the decisions you make with your doctor who's taking care of you. So I for myself, I'm choosing to be on testosterone indefinitely, but I have no desire to have any form of surgery on my external genitalia. So that is a personal decision I made for myself.

Justin Steinman:
Got it. That's really helpful to clarify. So let's just be honest here. This is a topic that makes some people uncomfortable, right? They don't know how to talk about it. They don't know what to say. They're worried they're going to be offensive. So a lot of times, people just don't say anything at all. For those folks out there, can you give a little insight as to how someone should act as an ally? What's the right etiquette?

Ben Haseen:
Yeah, absolutely. I feel like in this day and age, people are just so afraid to talk to a trans person because they're so afraid of cancel culture. I feel like cancel culture has really made it hard for people to make mistakes. And as trans people, we are not fragile individuals. We understand that is hard for someone who's known us. Let's say my parents, they've seen me grow up as a girl. And then when I first started telling them though I'm a boy, they made mistakes. They didn't always get my pronouns correctly. My friends that I grew up with since middle and high school didn't always get my pronouns and gender identity correctly. And although that does hurt for me as a trans person, I do realize that there is going to be that adjustment period. So to be an ally for me is being humble enough to admit that yes, you will make mistakes, but you will wake up every day wanting to affirm your loved one who is coming out as trans and continuing to do the work to affirm them.
So even I had this issue when I started having more and more trans and non-binary friends, I had to get accustomed to they/them pronouns. I use binary pronouns, which is he/him, which in the English language is pretty natural for someone to switch to, but to adjust to they/them pronouns, someone might have a harder time, even myself. So what I ended up doing when I had my first non-binary friend who uses they/them pronouns, I just started using they/them pronouns with everyone because it's such a universal pronoun and I just got comfortable using it. So now it's a lot easier for me to use.

Justin Steinman:
Got it. So basically, if you make a mistake, sorry, move on, right? It's not the end of the world.

Ben Haseen:
Absolutely. And you don't have to just focus so hard on the apology, right? Just acknowledge that you've made the mistake and just go ahead and try again.

Justin Steinman:
Yeah, that's really good to hear. I'm sure that pops a lot of people at ease. So I got another question. We've kind of talked a little bit about this here. What's the difference between gender identity and sexuality?

Ben Haseen:
This is a really common question I get asked a lot even with other medical students. I remember in my second year of medical school, we had our trans diversity lecture. One of my classmates actually raised his hand and he was like, "So are you telling me that being trans, you can be gay?" And I remember laughing a little bit. I wasn't the lecturer, but the lecturer also found it very amusing. And she was like, "Yes, actually it's very, very different." So although the T in transgender belongs to the LGBTQ alphabet, being trans is a gender identity, which means it's someone's sense of self when it comes to how they express themselves, not who they are attracted to. So a sexuality is someone who is gay, bi, or lesbian. So a trans person is not transitioning to become a straight person. A trans person can be lesbian, gay, or bisexual, or any other sexuality.

Justin Steinman:
Some of the things you taught me during our prep call for this podcast is that there are more than just two combinations of sex chromosomes. I naively incorrectly thought that the only possible combinations were XX and XY. We can blame my ignorance in the fact that I took a science class about 33 years ago and stopped. Can you share a bit more about how chromosomes work and interact to create an individual's gender identity?

Ben Haseen:
Yes, absolutely. So this is something that I do my best to teach other people who are unaware of sex chromosomes. So as someone who is in the medical system, I know how sex assignment works when a baby is born and how we do prenatal testing. So something for everyone to note is that there are more than XX and XY chromosomes. People can be born with XXX or just one X. There's a lot of variations in sex chromosomes. And most people, even myself and you listening to this, don't even know your sex chromosomes because we don't do that test when someone comes in for prenatal testing. We actually never test for sex chromosomes unless it's warranted. So the only times a OB-GYN, let's say you're going for your prenatal visits, you're going to have a baby, the only chromosomal test that we do are for the genetic abnormalities such as down syndrome, known as Trisomy 21, and there's a couple more, but we do not test for sex chromosomes.
So the majority of people in the US for the past 20, 30, 40-ish years actually don't know what sex chromosomes they have. There's a bit of an overlap with intersex identities because intersex people come across this realization that their intersects later in life because they are socialized as whatever external genitalia that they have with that gender that's presumed for them to be and then they always have this internal conflict of, "I don't feel comfortable in my body" and then later on as they hit puberty, they realize either they're not getting their period or they're not developing breasts. They go to their doctor and they find out that they're actually intersex. So I could talk about this for five hours because it's a very extensive genetic course, but that's just the 101.

Justin Steinman:
Got it. That's really helpful and interesting. I even learned more just now, so thank you for sharing that. So let's transition and talk a little bit about the healthcare system, because you kind of started to lead us there anyways in that last answer. What are some of the challenges that a transgender person faces when seeking healthcare?

Ben Haseen:
Absolutely. So being trans and seeking healthcare, a lot of the challenges that trans people face comes with just that there is not enough education by healthcare providers to learn about their trans patients. And one of the biggest frustrations that trans patients face when it comes to going to their doctor is that they feel like they have to teach their physician what it means to be a trans person. This leads to avoidance of a clinic visit. It leads to avoidance of seeking specialty care. Or let's say a trans man needs a pap smear, they'll avoid going to the doctor to get a pap smear that they should be getting for cancer prevention.
What I really emphasize to my medical students and physicians that I educate when it comes to trans health is that if you have a patient that comes in with complicated diabetes, you only know typical diabetes management, but this is your patient, you take responsibility for that patient. So as a physician, it is my ethical responsibility to read up on my patient myself and learn how to manage their complicated diabetes. I have that same expectation for medical providers who take care of trans patient. It is not the patient's duty to teach you about the patient's medical needs. In fact, most trans people struggle with understanding their own bodies themselves. So how can they teach you when they don't have any medical education? You can go and seek out those resources to educate yourself and treat your patients.

Catherine Wright:
So the responsibility to improve trans healthcare is not exclusive to providers who are trans. Do you find that the medical system, and specifically as you know you're working through medical school yourself, do you feel like it adequately prepare providers to treat members of the trans community?

Ben Haseen:
I actually don't think it's there yet. I think it's getting better for sure. I think even in my medical school, the first and second years where we don't actually see patients, we spend more time in the classroom. We do have one or two lectures on sexual orientation and gender diversity, but it is very, very rudimentary right now. Usually it's just a crash course on pronouns. But since my time in medical school, I haven't had a course where I'm thought how to prescribe hormones, how to check hormone levels. So the nuances of actual medical care and clinical decision making, that kind of education is still not there yet. Even though there's so many guidelines now that's published by the American Association of Family Practitioners and all these organizations that are pushing out the literature on how to take care of trans patients, it's just not being translated into medical education. Doctors generally have to seek that information out.

Justin Steinman:
So you mentioned something else when you were talking about it, trans broken arm syndrome. What is that?

Ben Haseen:
Oh, absolutely. So I talk about this a lot. So this is another challenge that trans patients may face when it comes to seeing their doctor. So trans broken arm syndrome is the phenomenon where a trans person where to just go to the doctor for any other medical issue, but for some reason the doctor is overtly hyper focused on the fact that they're trans.
So let's say I break my arm and obviously I need to get that fixed, so I go to the emergency department. But instead of getting a cast, the doctor is asking me about my testosterone, asking me about how long I've been transitioning, my prior surgeries. "Yes, those are medical questions for my medical history, but are they relevant to my visit? I have a broken arm right now. Can we get that fixed?" I've talked to gay men and lesbian women about this too, and they feel like they sometimes have to experience that too because the doctor is just overtly interested in their sexual medical history, but not the reason for their visit. So it's very important for clinical providers. Yes, you should ask comprehensive medical questions, but please, please, please emphasize the reason for the visit.

Justin Steinman:
And if you're a patient and you find yourself in this situation, a lot of people are very deferential to doctors, right?

Ben Haseen:
Absolutely.

Justin Steinman:
How do you recommend that the patient advocate for him or herself or theirself?

Ben Haseen:
I think it's very important for patients to be like, "Hey, I understand that you're asking me all these questions, but I came in for this medical reason. This is my primary problem. Can you address this before you ask those questions?" And I think that is a really good way to restructure the patient visit.

Justin Steinman:
Right. Or they can just wave their broken arm in the doctor's face and be like, "Hello."

Ben Haseen:
Of course. You could be angry. I think it's justified.

Catherine Wright:
So something I've heard you talk about in the past is your approach of activism through academia. Could you talk to us a little bit more about that?

Ben Haseen:
Yes. So my big thing in the last five years since I've been both a researcher and a medical student is that my goal when I do any form of trans medical research is to talk about what are the intersections of medicine that has to do with the trans identity. So not just prescribing testosterone and estrogen. I think that's important, but not the work that I want to do. So my work is how do we get more men to come to the clinic for pap smears, because that's often something we see that's neglected among trans men who still have cervixes that needs cancer screenings.
Another thing that I've talked about recently is breast cancer. So when we look at mastectomies for trans masculine people and trans men, we assume that they're getting the same type of mastectomy that a woman with breast cancer would get. So it would eliminate their breast cancer risk. That is not true. It's a misnomer. So if you were to get gender-affirming mastectomies, the plastic surgeon actually retains breast tissue to create a masculine shape of the chest. The cisgender woman with breast cancer goes to get a mastectomy, they'll remove any breast tissue that can become cancerous. So if I get a mastectomy that's gender-affirming and I have breast tissue, that breast tissue can become cancerous one day. So recently, I just presented at the Society of Public Health Educators Conference on teaching your trans-masculine patients who've had mastectomies to continue to do self-testing where they look for bumps on their chest, to just screen routinely if they should go to the doctor if they feel something unusual.

Justin Steinman:
So kind of moving on and playing off that question that Catherine just asked you, the thing you said to me during our prep call... Actually the best thing you said to me during our prep call. There was a lot of good stuff, but I wrote this down word for word because I loved it. It was, "My work is focused on the things that we don't talk about, but we should." That statement, I think, can play in so many walks of life. There are so many things that we don't talk about, but we should. But what does that mean in the area of transgender healthcare?

Ben Haseen:
So for me, that is understanding that there are not a lot of research when it comes to taking hormones, when it comes to medical transition, and that we should continue to do that kind of work to understand what it means to be a trans patient. How does it impact your mental health? How does it impact... I just recently read two articles that have been published in the last five years showing that trans children who haven't medically transitioned, they haven't even taken hormones, but these children are more at risk of developing type 1 diabetes than children who don't identify as trans. And why does that happen? So there's a cross-section between medicine and stress. So these trans kids are subjected to more stress. And we know that through type 1 diabetes research, that stress plays a huge impact on how certain children develop type 1 diabetes. So these are the intersections that nobody really talks about that I want to continue to do the work to research to make lives better for everyone.

Catherine Wright:
So on the topic of pediatric care, we love our data here at Definitive. So we're just looking at the trends in our medical claims data and we've definitely seen an increase in the number of gender dysphoria diagnoses even the last five years. Could you tell us a little bit about what that diagnosis is and what is the difference between pediatric and adult care?

Ben Haseen:
Absolutely. So the term gender dysphoria, it's a medical term that was established by the DSM, which is the Bible for all psychiatrists throughout the United States and the world. It's called the Diagnostic Statistical Manual. We're on the 5th edition now. And the DSM categorizes gender dysphoria is this mental incongruence between how someone is socialized in their gender identity versus how they feel is their gender identity. So there are five criteria that denotes gender dysphoria. For adults, you have to meet two of those five criteria to have that diagnosis. But I want to emphasize that children have a much more stricter guideline to have this diagnosis. Children have to meet all five criteria to be diagnosed with gender dysphoria. It's my mission to make sure that people know this because I know that recently because politics, there's this discussion of why are children being diagnosed with gender dysphoria or why are we giving hormones to children. A lot of it is fearmongering. Not many children are diagnosed with gender dysphoria. And if they are, they have to meet those strict, rigorous guidelines.

Justin Steinman:
So you were talking about gender dysphoria. Let me flip the question around, what's gender euphoria?

Ben Haseen:
Absolutely. So gender euphoria is something the trans community has kind of embraced because dysphoria, it's such a negative term. It medicalizes us. It turns us into a patient. But as a trans person, we're not just patients, we're individual human beings. So gender euphoria is a term that we've kind of embraced, and it's when the feeling of bliss and being happy and being comfortable in your own skin. Imagine when you were 16 years old going to prom and buying that dress or that suit and you put it on and you felt super, super happy. You felt really great. That's the feeling that you have when you experience gender euphoria. For a trans person, for me, it was the day where I bought my first pair of men's pants and I realized I have a lot more pocket space. So those are the little things in my life that I do, just being myself that makes me happy.

Justin Steinman:
So as long as we're talking about happy, let's go to the topic of mental health. And whereas in transgender healthcare, what's the intersection between physical health and mental health?

Ben Haseen:
There is quite a bit of intersection between physical and mental health. This is another thing that can go on for maybe like 15 lectures, but I'll just give a couple of examples. So among trans youth, there are some studies that have shown that trans youth can be at risk of eating disorders, comorbid eating disorders. You might be thinking, "Why? Why does that happen? Is it just a bunch of mental illnesses that trans people are subject to?" It's not. You really have to think about what are the types of biases trans kids face and the types of social pressures trans kids face.
So one way I explain it is that when you are a trans kid and you've just hit puberty and you realize that you're acquiring curves or breast tissue, it creates that mental dysphoria. And when you have that dysphoria, you're going to try and restrict what you're eating to try and limit these changes in your body that's causing you mental distress, which leads to things like eating disorders. I'm not saying that every trans person will develop an eating disorder, but they do become at risk of eating disorders based on the societal pressures that change their behavior as they're aging.

Catherine Wright:
One thing that we've looked at a lot recently here at Definitive is thinking about the concept of a key opinion leader, and specifically the emerging concept of a digital opinion leader. So those in the medical community that are really influencing the future of healthcare through online platforms. I know Justin referenced your YouTube page before, which I also had opportunity to check out, which was awesome. And you're covering just really important topics like type 1 diabetes among transgender people, working out after top surgery. So is it possible that social media could actually be a good thing? How is that showing up for you and how has your platform been?

Justin Steinman:
And if it is a good thing, please don't tell my kids. I want them off social media.

Ben Haseen:
I think social media is amazing when you use it for good, for the right reasons. I feel like recently there's this dichotomy between you can use social media to exploit people or to change people's minds to be more hateful, or you could use it to help people understand those that are different from you. So for me, social media was super, super impactful because while I was... I decided to medically transition during my first year of medical school, which was when I think back on it, wow, I can't believe I did that because not only was I taking on the stress of being a new medical student, but I decided to put additional stress of going through medical transition and having my classmates see me change over time.
But while I was in medical school, I just felt so alone because I was the only outran person. So what I did is I went on Twitter one day and I found trans medical students throughout the country. We've created a big network where what we do is we tweet about these things that trans medical students face so that doctors who are also on Twitter understand our experience. And it allows us to share information. What I really love is that now that as a researcher, that I publish articles, research articles, I realize that most of my audience when I publish these articles are other scientists, other providers. But this information is super, super helpful for the layperson, the common trans kid that's going through Twitter and just following people they look up to.
So what I do with social media is I take this research that's for big vocabulary scientists that's exclusive to them. To buy these articles, you have to go through a paywall or have some sort of institutional affiliation. What I do is I read these articles, I make it accessible to everyone. So you can just come to my YouTube channel and learn about these articles that are being published and understand what those fancy words mean.

Justin Steinman:
I'm glad you brought up technology though. I wanted to talk to you a little bit about EHRs. It's electronic health records, right?

Ben Haseen:
Yeah.

Justin Steinman:
So earlier this year we had the CEO of CareCloud on our podcast. CareCloud makes EHRs. And I talked to the CEO and we talked a lot about how EHRs are changing for modern healthcare. How have EHRs changed to accommodate trans healthcare and what changes are still needed?

Ben Haseen:
EHRs are doing an excellent job. I'm honestly very surprised. I think EHRs are more advanced than the actual providers using them sometimes. But right now, the primary EHR I use through my hospital system is Epic, which is one of the biggest EHR providers in the country. Epic themselves have started incorporating something called the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity inventory. We call it the SOGI. I see more and more as I use more clinic-based EHRs, they also have their own versions of SOGIs. And what it allows you to do as a provider is when I have my, let's say, annual visits for a patient, these questionnaires allow me to not just put in someone's sex assigned at birth, but I can also put in their pronouns, I can put in what words they like for their specific body parts, what things that they're comfortable with, have they had a hysterectomy. This becomes beneficial for not just my trans patients, but every patient that might have had a procedure. Let's say I have a patient that has had a hysterectomy, so I'm not awkwardly asking her when was her last menstrual period during the visit.
So I say that EHRs are doing an excellent job. They are also incorporating very, very descriptive sexual health questions, not just, "What's your sexual identity?" It's like, "Even though you identify as a straight man, are you still having sex with men?" Because a lot of straight men will have sex with men. So EHRs have incorporated these types of questions so that I can get comprehensive health history.

Justin Steinman:
Do you think the EHR has a responsibility to guide the physician who may or may not be an expert in this area?

Ben Haseen:
I think so. I even think that my experience has been with Epic, Epic's Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity inventory is so descriptive that I think anybody can pick it up. Even not just a nurse or like a doctor, but a medical assistant can use that inventory and ask questions with respect and dignity.

Justin Steinman:
Interesting. All right. Let's go there. So you can't talk about transgender healthcare in today's world without talking about what's happening politically. And whether it's Florida passing laws to restrict gender-affirming care just this past March, becoming one of eight states to restrict transition related care for minors, or Montana banning transgender care for minors in April, it appears that just some people don't want to let other people be who they are. What's even more remarkable about this is the fact the Montana governor's son is non-binary, and yet he signed that into law. And now the Montana legislature's advancing a bill that would define sex and binary terms, which is pretty much the exact opposite of everything we've spent the past 35 minutes or so talking about. So I have to ask you this, and I realize it's unfair to ask you this, but what in the world is going on and why do people care so much about other people's lives?

Ben Haseen:
Absolutely. This is a question I ask myself a lot as a trans person, because we represent less than 1% of the US population. So most people who have such a big issue with us has never met a trans person. And if you've ever talked to me, you'll realize that I'm not the alien that the media is presenting me as. I'm just a typical average guy who just wants to be left alone at Costco. But I think what we're seeing here is just a way to scapegoat specific minority to detract from actual laws that should be passed to take care of your constituents.
I'm currently living in Georgia and grew up in Atlanta most of my life. And Atlanta just passed the gender-affirming care ban for youth. I read that entire bill, and the bill doesn't make any sense to me. I'm wondering why so much money was put into passing this bill, because even though the bill bans it, it says in a clause that if it's medically necessary, it can be done. And I'm thinking the entire time reading this bill, if a person decides to medically transition, it is medically necessary. So I'm just very confused on why these bills are being passed, but I do think there is a motivation to detract from the laws that should be being passed to help our constituents in the states that we live in.
But I also think about this historically. Trans people right now are the target of these laws, but 10 years ago it was gay marriage. Before that, it was Nazi Germany persecuting Jewish people in Europe. And then even before that, it was Irish and Italian immigrants who immigrated to America. So I feel like in every generation, there's going to be a group of people that are persecuted and scapegoated to avoid the harsh truths of our society and what we actually need to do to help our people.

Justin Steinman:
Yep. Let's just hope that we can someday get passed to all of that. You would think we would here in the 20th first century, but for some reason-

Ben Haseen:
Absolutely.

Justin Steinman:
... we just can't. Ugh.

Catherine Wright:
Ben, a personal question. Your way to Duke, I believe, and starting your residency, is that correct?

Justin Steinman:
Absolutely.

Catherine Wright:
Can you give us an update of where you're at on your medical career journey?

Ben Haseen:
Yes. So I just finished my requirements for medical school about a month ago.

Catherine Wright:
Congratulations.

Ben Haseen:
That's my last rotation. Thank you so much. And during match day, I was surprised I matched at Duke University. It is one of the top 10 psychiatry programs in the country. I did not expect to match there, I'm going to be really honest. But I am very, very grateful. They've embraced me with love. I'm just very excited to start.

Justin Steinman:
We're excited for you. And I think you're going to bring a great and unique perspective to the Duke community and that whole area at large.

Ben Haseen:
Thank you so much.

Justin Steinman:
Yeah. Ben, this has been great. I really appreciated you talking. You've shared so much. I've learned so much today. Thank you very much. Before I go, I do want to do a quick public service announcement. There's a chance this podcast may reach a transgender individual who's struggling with his or her or their identity and doesn't know where to turn. If you are that person and you're listening today, you should know there are resources available and people out there who want to help you. If you need a place to start, please check out The Trevor Project at thetrevorproject.org. Ben, thanks again. Good luck with your residency.

Ben Haseen:
Thank y'all so much for having me. And I hope everyone who's listening has learned something from this podcast.

Justin Steinman:
Me too. Catherine, thank you again for joining us too.

Catherine Wright:
Thank you. Thanks, Ben.

Justin Steinman:
And for all our listeners out there, thank you for listening to Definitively Speaking, a Definitive Healthcare Podcast. Please join me next time for a conversation with Dr. Alexander Krupnick, a surgeon and professor at the University of Maryland Medical School. Dr. Krupnick is a lung transplant surgeon who moonlights as a healthcare entrepreneur. He started two businesses and sold one of them. And he believes the surgeons have a unique perspective on drug development that is severely underappreciated. If that peaks your curiosity, then I invite you to join me next time here on Definitively Speaking. If you like what you've heard today, please remember to rate, review, and subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. To learn more about how healthcare commercial intelligence can support your business, please follow us on Twitter, @DefinitiveHC, or visit us at definitivehc.com. Until next time, take care. Please stay healthy and remember that everyone has the right to be who they want to be.