• Question: what hospitals do you work in and are the doctors and the nurses as skilled as you once they are taught by you

    Asked by baligdei to Gemma on 12 Mar 2018.
    • Photo: Gemma Chandratillake

      Gemma Chandratillake answered on 12 Mar 2018:

      I work across the East of England (East Anglia) and the East Midlands. I work regularly within Cambridge University Hospitals and with Nottingham University Hospital and University Hospital Leicester, but I travel around wherever I’m asked/needed within the region, and give input to national programmes. The course that I help run at the University of Cambridge attracts NHS professionals from all over the country, and other students from all over the world.
      In terms of skill level, everyone has a different set of skills already, so I’m not trying to get the healthcare professionals to be the same as me, but I am trying to give them certain knowledge and skills to use along with their other skills (they certainly have many skills that I don’t have!). I don’t think that, say, in an hour-long seminar, I can improve the skill level of those that attend too much – in that case I am mostly aiming to raise awareness of the areas in which genetics can be useful, and some pitfalls to ordering genetic tests, as well as encourage people to undergo more training. In about a week, though, I reckon that I can take somebody who has no molecular background at all to the point where they understand: how to read DNA sequence; what a genetic variant is; how to describe it; how to find out what is known about it; whether it could be relevant for the patient’s health and other family members; and have the confidence to discuss it with other healthcare providers and the patient. If I can get lots of healthcare professionals of all varieties to that point, implementation of the science into care will be much easier. I also do things like write resources for healthcare professionals e.g. http://eastgenomics.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/1/files/2017/05/Genetic-Test-Report-doc-v1-final_New-logo.pdf and research into how well healthcare professionals and patients understand and take appropriate action based on the results of genetic tests.

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