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Interdisciplinary Education for Genetic Counselors: Developing the Concept and Assessing the Need in Australasia

  • Professional Issues
  • Published:
Journal of Genetic Counseling

Abstract

Interdisciplinary teams are increasingly common in healthcare as a means of improving patient care and there is consensus in the literature that a formalized framework of interdisciplinary education for health professionals is an advantageous means of professional development. To our knowledge no such application to genetic counseling has been reported. Prompted by limited direct exposure to the oncology processes discussed during genetic counseling sessions, two genetic counselors completed an interdisciplinary education exercise by observing various oncology settings. As intended we gained a deeper understanding of the: (1) Roles of other health professionals within the oncology interdisciplinary team, (2) Patient experience of cancer screening and treatment, and (3) Clinical processes relevant to cancer genetic counselors’ discussions. In addition, further benefits resulted from (4) Insight into how patients and referring providers utilize the FCC within wider oncology care and (5) Strengthening of relationships between the FCC and other oncology-related teams. The observation experience and resulting learnings are described in this paper. To investigate wider application of this novel initiative, a survey of Australasian genetic counselors was conducted, finding that genetic counselors mostly source knowledge about oncology procedures through indirect means and that, overall, anecdotal descriptions from patients were the most common information source (74 %). Over 95 % of respondents expected that interdisciplinary observations would be a beneficial part of their professional development and almost 90 % expected the program to be potentially feasible in their workplace. These findings indicate there is a role for interdisciplinary education to be considered as a formal continual learning tool for genetic counselors.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Professor Ingrid Winship and Dr Adrienne Sexton for their ongoing guidance and support in relation to this initiative.

Conflict of Interest

None of the authors has a conflict of interest of a financial or other nature.

Informed Consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed consent was obtained from all participants for being included in the study.

Human and Animal Rights

No animal or human studies were carried out by the authors for this article.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Genetic Medicine and Familial Cancer Centre, Royal Melbourne Hospital, C/o Post Office, Grattan Street Parkville, Melbourne, VIC, 3050, Australia

    Kirsty J. Mann, Jessica A. Taylor & Paul A. James

  2. Department of Medicine and Paediatrics, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

    Clara Gaff

Authors
  1. Kirsty J. Mann
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  2. Jessica A. Taylor
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  3. Paul A. James
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  4. Clara Gaff
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kirsty J. Mann.

Additional information

Kirsty J. Mann and Jessica A. Taylor are joint first authors

This manuscript has not been published previously and is not currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. Confidentiality has been maintained by the use of pseudonyms in this manuscript.

Appendices

Appendix 1: Survey questions

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Appendix 2: Proforma for observations

Consultations

  1. A.

    Consultation description

    1. 1.

      Date:

    2. 2.

      Name and position of clinician observed:

    3. 3.

      Others present (e.g. relative, student, nurse):

    4. 4.

      Appointment duration:

    5. 5.

      Type of appointment (e.g. oncology, etc.):

    6. 6.

      Brief outline of appointment:

  1. B.

    Identified areas of learning

    1. 1.

      Medical knowledge:

    2. 2.

      Role of health professional (also comment on how clinician’s usual role differs from FCC role if applicable):

  1. C.

    Comments about patient impact/perspective:

  1. D.

    Reference to Familial Cancer Clinic (FCC)

    1. 1.

      Family history discussed? Yes/No

    2. 2.

      FCC discussed? Yes/No

    3. 3.

      FCC referral made? Yes/No

    4. 4.

      Approximate time spent discussing FCC:

    5. 5.

      Comments about FCC discussion:

  1. E

    Potential application of learning points for practice:

  1. F

    Other points/comments of note:

Procedures

  1. A.

    Procedure description

    1. 1.

      Date:

    2. 2.

      Type of procedure observed:

    3. 3.

      Name and position of clinician observed:

    4. 4.

      Staff present:

    5. 5.

      Procedure duration:

  1. B

    Physical environment:

    1. 1

      Description of physical environment:

    2. 2

      Any observations different from expected?

  1. C

    Procedure:

    1. 1

      Description of procedure:

    2. 2

      Any observations different from expected?

  1. D

    Potential application of learning points for practice:

  1. E

    Screening Procedures:

    1. 1.

      Was a cancer/polyps suspected/detected?

    2. 2.

      Is there potential to observe consultation reporting results of procedure?

OR

  1. F.

    Post surgical procedures (cancer management):

    1. 1.

      Comments about observation

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Mann, K.J., Taylor, J.A., James, P.A. et al. Interdisciplinary Education for Genetic Counselors: Developing the Concept and Assessing the Need in Australasia. J Genet Counsel 23, 708–724 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10897-014-9723-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10897-014-9723-6

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