This week we celebrated Genetic Counsellor Awareness Day, on Thursday 4 November. The day is dedicated to raising awareness and interest about genetic counsellors and the critical and supportive role they play.
Their role is to offer guidance and emotional support to patients to help them understand their family history, evaluate genetic testing options, and make informed choices based on test results.
Anita Gorrie is a Genetic Counsellor in the Genetics Department at Monash Health and explains what makes her job so unique.
“It is a very niche profession and involves thinking about genetic testing differently from other parts of medicine. Genetic testing can impact the whole family, as one test is a whole family test. I find it interesting to be on the edge of genetic testing but also to be informing and supporting our patients through often challenging diagnoses.”
Anita enjoys being a genetic counsellor because she is fascinated by genetics and gets to build patient relationships.
“We are the contact point for the patients to explain the process, information and the testing. We provide counselling support and emotional assistance throughout this process. It is a mix of the interpersonal side of the job with the interesting genetics side”.
Genetic counsellors work in various specialty areas, including prenatal, paediatrics, oncology, neurology, cardiovascular diseases, metabolic diseases and genomic medicine.
A key component of genetic counselling at Monash Health is within the prenatal department and the fetal diagnostic unit.
“We see a lot of people who are planning for a pregnancy and have a genetic condition. Our role is to talk to people who might have a family history of a condition, discuss their options and if they may be at risk. Our doctors will diagnose a patient, and we do the genetic testing and support the patient through this diagnosis and find out what this means for future family members”.
“People might not know that genetic testing has come leaps and bounds, and we are doing a significant amount of genetic testing. It is becoming a much bigger field and much more accessible and financially available to patients, and our understanding of genetics is rapidly developing’.
We would like to acknowledge and thank our genetic counsellors at Monash Health for their incredible work in caring for and supporting our patients.
Approved by Anjali Dhulia.