June is LGBTQ+ Pride Month: A Spotlight on GSDM Safe Zone Training
Rodica Grosu DMD AS 26 was born and raised in the Republic of Moldova, where LGBTQ+ issues are not openly discussed. When she moved to the United States and met LGBTQ+ identifying individuals, she wanted to learn how to create respectful environments, both professionally and personally.
Grosu was excited to discover that GSDM offers students the opportunity to complete a Safe Zone training, which are informational sessions about LGBTQ+ terminology/concepts, cultural competency, and inclusive language. Upon completing her training, she now knows how to use a person’s preferred pronouns and gender-neutral terminology.
“The Safe Zone training made me a more conscientious, respectful, and proactive advocate of LGBTQ+ people,” Grosu said. “I also learned more about things like gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation—and how they’re not always aligned in the way people tend to think. I am much more mindful of what I say and how I act.”
The GSDM Safe Zone training launched in 2019 and is currently offered periodically during the academic year, including during predoctoral matriculation and clinical orientation.
The training is based upon curriculum from the Safe Zone Project, a free online open-source resource with LGBTQ+ educational training content. Erica Stocks COM 01 Wheelock 12, director of student affairs, said Student Affairs uses the Safe Zone Project as a guide and incorporates feedback from GSDM students, residents, faculty, and staff to keep training up to date.
“I think as an institution, given that we are seeing patients from all walks of life, building cultural competency across many different spectrums is really important,” Stocks said. “It just creates a more humanistic [and] a more welcoming environment.”
Neil Unmadkat DMD AS 26 arrived at GSDM with some LGBTQ+ inclusion education from his initial dental school and his early career in the United Kingdom. He found the GSDM Safe Zone training comparable to his earlier courses and said it was helpful to have in-person discussions with his peers.
“It was really nice to be able to have those discussions with people from so many parts of the world,” Unmadkat said. “From the student perspective, it was a lot different from the things I’d experienced before, because in the past it used to be like online courses It was never group discussions–that’s what I really liked about it.”
As an individual who identifies as part of the LGBTQ+ community, Ali Albast DMD 28 said he already knew key vocabulary and concepts but had never received any official training. He said he was surprised that there were a few terms discussed in his Safe Zone training that he didn’t know about.
Similar to Unmadkat, Albast liked the in-person discussion of the training in which people could be vulnerable and speak out about any related topic they had in mind. He didn’t feel put upon to share his personal experience, but instead enjoyed hearing his peers talk about a friend and/or family member who is part of the LGBTQ+ community.
“The [training] did mostly concentrate on the LGBTQ community, but also the Safe Zone training was not just only that,” Albast said. “It was also generalized to how different you can be as a human being and how that shouldn’t affect how people perceive you in society.”
Vidhi Patel DMD AS 26 said she had not received any LGBTQ+ training before attending GSDM. Going into the training, she said she hoped to get a deeper understanding of LGBTQ+ identities and the challenges individuals in these communities might face. The Safe Zone training gave her this knowledge—as well as a drive to speak up when she hears insensitive comments from others.
“I learned how even small actions can have a big impact in creating a welcoming environment for everyone,” Patel said.
Since her training, Patel said she has made a conscious effort to use correct pronouns and create a more inclusive atmosphere in both academic and clinical settings.
“As healthcare providers, we must be prepared to serve patients from all backgrounds with compassion and cultural competence,” Patel said. “This training is an important step in ensuring that GSDM is a safe, supportive space for everyone—students, faculty, staff, and patients alike.”
Receiving the training is one thing; putting the concepts into action is another. Albast said he hopes his fellow classmates will retain the topics discussed in their Safe Zone trainings and keep these inclusivity concepts in mind while interacting with patients, colleagues, and peers. He stressed that the ideas in Safe Zone training do not only pertain to individual in the LGBTQ+ community, but can be applied to anyone, regardless of their background.
“Safe Zone training is an important approach towards making everybody feel comfortable as a human being, patient, and a provider to make them feel more comfortable,” Albast said. “At the end of the day, [our] goal is to treat [patients] the best way possible, and this is a big piece of it. If your patient is comfortable, you’re able to treat them the right way and they can only be comfortable if you’re respectful of who they are.”