Helping People Thrive— Kayla McLaughlin ’09, MPAS ’15
This article was originally published in the Winter 2022 edition of the Chatham Recorder Alumni Magazine. To view more digital Recorder stories, click here.
Hailing from rural PA, “where all we talk about is motorcycles,” Kayla McLaughlin ’09, MPAS ’15 was a first-year, first-generation Chatham student when she was exposed to people who were transgender for the first time.
“I remember there were at least two or three students in my class that were non-binary or identifying as transmasculine,” she says. “And I remember in one of my classes we had a discussion about it, because we were like ‘Oh, we’re an all-female school, so what does this mean’ and I just thought it was such an amazing complex conversation. And one of my first professors was queer, and used a wheelchair, and she was very politically active and just a total renegade kind of person that blew my mind constantly.”
“I met so many people that I had never had any contact with before, and I think having that at that time, in that space, which was so safe, and affirming and gentle, was great. I loved Chatham,” she says.
In fact, McLaughlin loved Chatham so much that after graduating with a degree in exercise science and a portfolio of experiences that included a study abroad trip to Belize, she eventually applied to Chatham’s physical therapy program. But while working post-graduation, she says, “I found myself getting really interested in more of what had happened before they came to PT. I was able to observe a surgery, and that was where I was introduced to the role of the physician assistant,” she says. “The PA was basically running the operating room. I thought that was what I wanted to do—be a little more hands on with the actual surgery and medical care of patients, as opposed to the therapy aspects later.” After taking some prerequisites, she applied to Chatham’s Master of Physician Assistant Studies program, and was accepted.
Expanding her horizons
“I had a great great experience in my clinical rotations,” McLaughlin says. “I was very interested in underserved populations, so for each rotation I worked with a different group of people who were underserved.”
She went to Yuma, Arizona and worked in a pediatric clinic that served people that live on the border, “so the kids may have limited vaccine or medical history, and we learned how to treat people who may not come back to the doctor for several years, or may not be able to afford medications, or have a place to store medication.”
McLaughlin also completed a psychiatric rotation in Utah with its large Mormon population and witnessed how the interplay of medicine and religion affects patient compliance with treatments. She also went to the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana. “That was a tremendous experience because their hospital is a one-stop shop for everyone on the reservation, so we were able to deliver babies one day and then do alcohol counseling the next. I learned that figuring out the diagnosis and the right prescription or treatment plan is the easy part. The hard part is connecting with your patients in a way that makes them comply and be motivated to return to you for follow-up.”
Starting her career
After graduating from the MPAS program, McLaughlin moved to Los Angeles and began working in HIV medication clinical research at the Los Angeles LGBT Center. “That was a good introduction to the healthcare system, because I got to see patients who are disenfranchised and don’t have as much access to care, but in a very controlled research setting,” she says. After about 18 months, McLaughlin started doing primary care and hormone replacement therapy for transgender patients.
“That was really great because when treating a lot of patients, they don’t get better, or you’re managing an illness, but when you have a trans person, and you’re the person helping them start hormones, they only flourish. And it just feels so great. Instead of being like ‘Oh, your blood sugar’s still really bad’, I get to be like ‘Oh, look at you thriving!’”
“After I was there for a little bit, a friend of mine said that a position opened at Kaiser Permanente for transgender surgery, and that I should apply. I didn’t really have any surgical experience outside what I’d done in school, but I applied and interviewed the day before I gave birth to my daughter. They had a lot of applicants, but I was the only person who’d ever had a trans patient, or had a medical conversation with a trans person,” says McLaughlin. She got the job and has been there ever since.
“Truly life-saving procedures”
“Gender-affirming surgery is whenever we take one set of genitals and convert them to genitals that are more aligned with the sex that they identify as. A lot of these structures that we’re talking about are interchangeable with each other, so for example, scrotal tissue and labial tissue have the same properties, because they’re made of the same things.”
“These are truly life-saving procedures,” McLaughlin explains. “One of the biggest motivators for me to work in this field is that 40 percent of transgender patients report that they have attempted suicide. For patients who have gender-affirming surgeries, there’s an overwhelmingly high satisfaction rate, even if they have complications with the procedure. It’s really sort of a launching point for someone’s life.”
I ask McLaughlin about aspects of LGBTQ medicine that differ from a more general population. “Most medical providers don’t ask patients about their sexuality,” she says. “A lot of providers feel like that part of their patients is not a part of their medical care, but it is, because they have different needs. If we don’t even ask patients these questions about their lives, we’re omitting a huge part of who they are. And then we’re also not doing our due diligence in making sure that we are doing a complete health screening.”
“As a medical provider, our goal is to ease peoples’ suffering a little bit and I really think that’s what we’re doing. We do a surgery and peoples’ lives completely change—they just are off the charts happier with themselves and their relationships and their work, and their life expectancy increases. Being able to be with someone during such a transformative part of their life is very interesting and rewarding.”
“If we don’t even ask patients these questions about their lives, we’re omitting a huge part of who they are.”
Editor’s note: Kayla received the Undergraduate Young Alumni Cornerstone Award at Reunion Weekend 2022.