If an interdisciplinary team meets together on a regular basis to provide “one stop shopping” (meaning one-stop care) for families with DSDs, that is called an interdisciplinary clinic. Major medical centers sometimes have interdisciplinary clinics for DSDs. The advantage of this is that it often simplifies medical care and generally ensures that your child’s doctors and counselors are talking with each other and working together. (It does not guarantee the best care.)

Interdisciplinary team care happens when a team of medical specialists at a medical center helps a child with a DSD and his or her family. Interdisciplinary teams that treat DSDs may include a child psychologist and/or child psychiatrist, a geneticist, a genetic counselor, a pediatric or adolescent gynecologist, nurses, a pediatric endocrinologist, a pediatric urologist, a social worker, and other specialists as needed. They may operate an interdisciplinary clinic.

Intersex is a term sometimes used to refer to the condition of having a sex anatomy that is not considered standard for a male or a female. Like disorders of sex development, it is an umbrella term that covers many different conditions that appear in humans as well as other animals. The term is often used by adults with DSDs to talk about their bodies and their experiences. Using the general term “intersex” has allowed many adults with different kinds of DSDs to come together and work for progress in the way families with DSDs are treated.