12 Nov, 2020
The 12th of November marks Genetic Counsellor Awareness day.
The day is dedicated to celebrating these professionals and raising awareness about the important role genetic counsellors have. This role includes helping both the public and health professionals understand the important and supportive role they play in healthcare.
Genetic counselling is a communication process aimed at helping individuals, couples and families evaluate and understand the risk of inherited medical conditions.
They help you adapt to the medical, psychological, familial and reproductive implications that come with these conditions. Additionally, they offer support, promote informed decision-making and interpret genetic test results.
This is a rapidly evolving, dynamic allied health profession. Genetic counsellors work in many areas of healthcare, including: cancer, pregnancy, cardiology, neurology, infertility, paediatric and adult medicine. Many work directly with patients, while others work in research, education, public health, or industry settings.
Genetic Counselling Australia, a sister company of myDNA, offer genetic counselling services for non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT), pharmacogenomics, genetic carrier screening, and breast & ovarian cancer.
Today we highlight not only our members who are genetic counsellors, but all those right across this flourishing and essential profession. We applaud the work they do in clinics, labs and research to help people better understand their health and make a difference in the future of personalised medicine.
Do you know a genetic counsellor?
If so, don’t forget to reach out and thank them this Thursday. The work they do is invaluable to our society, and we seriously can’t thank them enough.