Denise Asafu-Adjei, MD, MPH, on inclusive leadership in sexual medicine

In this video, Denise Asafu-Adjei, MD, MPH, summarizes her 2024 Sexual Medicine Society of North America Fall Scientific Meeting talk, “Challenges of Inclusive Leadership in Sexual Medicine.” Asafu-Adjei is an assistant professor of urology at Loyola University Chicago-Stritch School of Medicine and also the medical director of Male Reproductive Medicine.

Transcription:

Please summarize some key points from your presentation "Challenges of Inclusive Leadership in Sexual Medicine."

I think when we think about inclusion and inclusive leadership, we are really focused on effectively collaborating and having an environment that is curious and that incorporates the perspectives and contributions from people. I think within sexual medicine, what's unique is that we are combating biases in gender, sexual health, cultural aspects that do impact how we can be inclusive. And so I think those are unique things within sexual medicine as it pertains to inclusive leadership.

What are some unique aspects of inclusive leadership as it pertains to sexual medicine?

I'd say sexual medicine in particular, first off, we think about gender. We are still in a field that is very much still dominated by men with underrepresentation with women, individuals from the LGBTQIA+ communities and gender non binary, non conforming. And so I think that being mindful of that representation, when it comes to leadership, research, and treatments that we talk about that is unique to our field, sexual medicine is also difficult to talk about across different cultures. We're also dealing with some cultural biases, and we have to be mindful [of] how do people like to discuss sexual medicine, and how does that impact our patient interactions? How does that impact how we even interact with our own colleagues?

We also have to think about health disparities. We know that members or individuals from underrepresented groups—minority, ethnic, and racial minorities don't engage health care the same way. And then you have the added component of systemic biases and access. And so I think that that also is an added layer of what we deal with in sexual medicine. And then finally, psychosocial issues. We know that mental health is highly intertwined with sexual health and sexual medicine. We also have the impacts from other social determinants of health, like poverty, education levels, and access to care, and that also really is unique to how we think about sexual medicine in the context of those factors.

This transcript was AI generated and edited by human editors for clarity.