Teaching and Learning About Sexual Diversity Within Medical Education: the Promises and Pitfalls of the Informal Curriculum

Although there has been a great deal of attention to medical education concerning sexual diversity in recent years, it has focused nearly exclusively on the content presented within the formal curriculum, i.e., medical schools’ required classes and other official offerings. In this article I examine the teaching and learning about sexual diversity that occurred within the informal curriculum of a top 20 US medical school. Previous research has found that the informal milieu of medical education is a site where sexual minority medical students may experience marginalization, and I found that this continues to be the case. However, I also argue that this aspect of medical education has the potential to be a very powerful form of curriculum concerning sexual diversity. The (in)visibility of sexual diversity within the interactions that comprise the informal curriculum shaped what all students, regardless of their own sexual identity, learned about sexual diversity and its place within the medical profession. Additional ethnographic research on the informal curricular processes that produce knowledge and understandings about sexual diversity in medical education may inform the development of robust policy interventions to ensure a more equitable environment for sexual minority members of the medical profession, and perhaps ultimately, more equitable, effective care of sexual minority patients.