What does a Genetic Counselor do?
Imagine your close friend is pregnant. She just found out that her baby has Down syndrome. The doctor gives her the diagnosis and quickly leaves the room to see other patients. As your friend walks through the crowded waiting room towards the exit, she feels overwhelmed. She has so many questions, and she doesn't know who to ask.
After a sleepless night, she calls the doctor hoping for answers. The doctor offers her a brochure about Down syndrome, but he doesn't have time to answer all her questions. He has lots of patients to see and even more paperwork to fill out. But he does know someone who can help her. The doctor refers her to a genetic counselor.
Do you want to help your friend?
As a genetic counselor, you will be trained to deal with people in situations like this. Genetic counseling is NOT about cloning or lab work; it's about people.
Unlike many other health science professions, genetic counseling focuses on empowering patients with knowledge. As a genetic counselor, you can spend a great deal of time interacting with your patients to ensure that they fully understand the ways genetics affect their lives.
As a genetic counselor you can:
- Educate communities about genetic counseling
- Explain family history and the chance that a condition will occur again
- Reduce the effects of genetic risks by educating patients and providing them with strategies for preventing disorders
Find Your Own Niche
Genetic counselors are not limited to working in prenatal settings; they work with a large variety of patients and a variety of diseases. As such, genetic counselors work in hereditary cancer, prenatal diagnosis, pediatrics and adult genetics settings.
As a genetic counselor, you have many career options, including:
- Counseling pregnant women, couples planning a pregnancy, couples who are at risk for having a baby with a genetic condition, or women who have experienced pregnancy loss
- Counseling parents, families, children and teenagers who have, or may have, genetic conditions such as sickle cell disease, deafness, mental retardation, or birth defects
- Counseling people with medical and genetic conditions, or a family history of a condition such as cancer, Huntington disease, or Alzheimer disease
Genetic counselors also work in public health settings to improve access to services and determine public policy; as teachers in high schools, colleges and universities; as researchers who explore and find solutions for unanswered questions in genetics; as consultants for pharmaceutical companies; or in private practice.
If you want to be respected by doctors and admired by your peers, if you want your work to be intellectually challenging and emotionally rewarding, genetic counseling may be the career for you.
To find out more about a career in genetic counseling, take a look at the National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC) website.