Just six months after forming in December 2014, the Northeast Medical Student Queer Alliance doubled from five member medical schools – led by the University of Vermont College of Medicine – to 10.

The alliance members – from Boston University, Brown University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Quinnipiac University, Tufts University, University of Connecticut, University of Massachusetts, UVM and Yale University – hope to address the quantity and quality of LGBTQ health education.

“We realized there was a dearth of any group like this,” says UVM’s Charlotte Hastings ’18, a founding member of the alliance.

The group initially discussed dozens of projects they’d like to tackle, but narrowed the list in the first year. Their top priority is scanning each schools’ curriculum for content that addresses lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and gender-nonconforming health issues. Spreadsheets compare courses over each of the four years at each school against the 36 LGBTQ health competencies that the Association of American Medical Colleges released late last year.

The students measure in 15-minute intervals, holding schools accountable for the exact time they devote to LGBTQ topics. “Every school is not coming even close to hitting all the competencies,” and most include it only in the first and second years, Hastings says of their findings.

Another project aims to gauge whether those LGBTQ lessons are likely to stick with students when they become doctors. The alliance’s members from Yale are conducting an online survey to assess students’ LGBTQ awareness and comfort levels. They hope to get a 50- to 70-percent response rate by the end of summer, Hastings says.

“Our major goal overall is to just improve the education medical students are receiving around treating LGBTQ patients,” she adds.

The third project would develop a list of “out” students and faculty members among the alliance’s members and provide it those at other medical schools who might have trouble finding mentors or peers with whom to discuss LGBTQ concerns.

At the UVM College of Medicine, the level of student advocacy and faculty support is advanced compared with other schools, Hastings says. “UVM is definitely unique in that aspect.”