APRIL,Edition # 23, 2001

Genetic Counselling is a field offering many opportunities for pharmacists.
With a firm scientific background and prime location as the major interface between patients and the health care system, pharmacists are well placed to provide information to patients about their conditions and treatment.
Patients with genetic conditions require counselling just like patients with other medical conditions, particularly with the emergence of new therapies for many previously untreatable genetic conditions.

However, there is a vast array of added knowledge, both in the science and therapies that result for genetic conditions.
Specialised knowledge and training are needed before counsellors can become accredited. The New South Wales Genetics Education Program (GEP) has been set up to educate the community at large about genetic conditions and their treatment.
Their website, http://www.genetics.com.au , features a large array of information for health professionals, students and the general public, about the resources available in this field. It describes at some length the range of services provided by genetic counsellors.
Genetic counsellors are generally health professionals with additional specialist training in both genetics and counselling, and accredited by the Human Genetics Society of Australia to work with clinical geneticists.
Genetic counsellors generally advise patients about the potential for other family members to develop the same disorder or to carry the genes for a disorder.
This information has the obvious potential to scare patients into feeling that they are passing the condition on to their children, but can provide reassurance that it is often unlikely that a genetic disorder will be passed on.
Knowledge of basic genetics is necessary for this assessment to be made.
Genetic counsellors also provide advice about genetic diseases in unborn children, and after exposure to potential teratogens.
Genetic counselling services are generally provided through hospitals with Genetics units and Community Health Centres.
But why couldn't some of these services be provided in pharmacies?
Patients with many genetic disorders will need some form of medication dispensed at a pharmacy, creating the opportunity for the pharmacist to offer advice about not only the therapy but lifestyle changes that are necessary.
A pharmacist could take the chance to offer a genetic counselling service in much the same way as they offer diabetes education or bone mass testing in community pharmacies now.
And specially trained pharmacists might be well placed to fill this role.
Genetic Counselling courses are readily available through universities in Australia.
A quick internet search turned up the Graduate Diploma of Genetic Counselling at the University of Melbourne's Faculty of Medicine, run in conjunction with the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute.
It takes one year of full-time study but there is a part time option.
For more information on this program see http://murdoch.rch.unimelb.edu.au/Education/Counselling.htm
The University of Newcastle offers a similar one year full-time or two years part-time program for those holding a university degree or equivalent qualifications.
For more information on this year's course (its too late to enrol now) see http://www.newcastle.edu.au/courseinfo/postgrad2001/med/10889.htm
These University programs are becoming more common as genetics itself becomes a more advanced field, and begins to explain a larger proportion of modern medicine and disease pathology.
Pharmacists have to realise the potential in this field and not let other professions take their place as a primary source of health advice and information.
The training in these fields, as with similar post-graduate diplomas is expensive, but it opens the door on a new range of services that could be offered in pharmacies.
Let's hope we haven't left it too late.
Ends

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The comments and views expressed in the above article are those of the author and no other. The author welcomes any comment and interaction that may result from this and future articles.

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