Presenting at the ACMG annual meeting in Nashville

For the rest of this week, I will be attending the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics Annual Meeting. It’s being held in one of my favorite towns, Nashville, Tennessee. Hence my choice of footwear pictured at right.

I’m attending primarily because I am presenting a poster on Friday from 10:30 – 12:00. It’s poster #456 and is titled:

Now More Than Ever: more counseling needed to balance more prenatal genetic information

It makes the case that with the advances in genetic testing providing ever more genetic information, more genetic counseling is needed.

This case is based on the professional guidelines that call for pre- and post-test counseling. However, unfortunately, the provision of genetic counseling is inconsistent, dependent upon the availability of a genetic counselor and reimbursement for his or her services.

I hope many genetic counselors, and all other attendees, at the conference will appreciate the argument that if professional guidelines call for genetic counseling due to more genetic information being offered, then the medical, genetics, and testing laboratories should support measures to provide for genetic counseling.

If you are attending ACMG in Nashville this week, I hope to see you, if not during the conference sessions then at my poster on Friday morning.

Thanks to all who make these efforts possible by supporting the National Center for Prenatal & Postnatal Down Syndrome Resources through your donations (which can be made at this link).