Abstract
Children’s National Health System (CNHS) is a not-for-profit pediatric hospital that employs around twenty genetic counselors in a range of specialties, including clinical pediatric, neurology, fetal medicine, research, and laboratory. CNHS lacked a structured system of advancement for their genetic counselors; therefore, a formal career ladder was proposed by the genetic counselors based on years of experience, responsibility, and job performance. This career ladder utilized monetary, academic, and seniority incentives to encourage advancement and continue employment at CNHS. The creation and ultimate approval of the career ladder required direct input from genetic counselors, Department Chairs, and Human Resource personnel. The establishment of a genetic counselor career ladder at CNHS will hopefully benefit the profession of genetic counselors as a whole and allow other facilities to create and maintain their own career ladder to meet the needs of the growing, competitive, field of genetic counseling.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Denise Clark and Maggy Li for their role as HR representatives in the task force, as well as Rhonda Schonberg for her guidance throughout the entire process.
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Laura Kofman, Mary Beth Seprish and Marshall Summar declare that they have no conflict of interest.
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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors; informed consent was not indicated for this study.
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Laura Kofman and Mary Beth Seprish contributed equally to this work.
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Kofman, L., Seprish, M.B. & Summar, M. Climbing the Ladder: Experience with Developing a Large Group Genetic Counselor Career Ladder at Children’s National Health System. J Genet Counsel 25, 644–648 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10897-016-9967-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10897-016-9967-4