Ob/Gyn & Women’s Health Institute Outcomes

In 2016, the Cleveland Clinic Center for LGBTQ+ Care was founded. Within this Center, the Transgender Surgery & Medicine Program was created. This Program is comprised of a multi-disciplinary team of providers from several institutes, including: Women’s Health, Urology, Plastic Surgery, Head and Neck, Pediatrics, and Community Care. In 2022, there were a total of 528 new patients initiating gender affirming care through the Cleveland Clinic Center for LGBTQ+ Care. To date, nearly 2,800 patients have received gender affirming care at Cleveland Clinic.

Leadership and coordination of gender affirming surgical services are housed in the Women’s Health Institute. Dr. Cecile Ferrando, a board-certified urogynecologist, was the original founder of the Transgender Surgery & Medicine Program, and she is now the Director of Surgical Services for the Program.

In 2019, the WHI trained its first fellow in gender affirming surgery and the team is currently training their third. Their first fellow was a board-certified Urogynecologist, who has recently started her own gender affirmation surgical program at Stanford University. The second fellow is a Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology specialist who practices at Boston Children’s Hospital and the last surgeon to complete the fellowship is also a Urogynecologist who will soon be building a gender affirmation surgical program at Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City.

From January 2018 through December 2022, 1,128 patients were seen in the Women’s Health Institute for gender affirmation surgical care. During this time period, there were 774 patient visits for gender affirming surgical care and 354 discrete patient visits for testosterone pellet implantation. There were 302 total gender affirming surgeries performed in the Women’s Health Institute: 148 feminizing genital surgeries (“vaginoplasty”), 29 orchiectomies, 69 revision vaginoplasty surgeries, and 56 hysterectomies performed.