preview

The Benefits Of Genetic Counseling

Better Essays

What is genetic counseling? What is a genetic counselor? Those questions and more are some things I remember thinking about in my sophomore year chemistry class. I was so intrigued, yet I had no idea what any of it meant. At the time, I had no idea how common they were, and just how much genetics advanced every day while I was clueless.

Our genes are what make us who we are. Humans share 99.5% of our DNA with each other. That means that every piece of DNA that makes us different is only .5% of our total DNA. A nucleus is a large organelle of a cell that holds almost all of the cell’s DNA (Tortora, Grabowski). In the nucleus of every human cell, DNA is tightly packaged into a structure called a chromosome (U.S. National Library of Medicine). …show more content…

Genetic counselors focus and specialize in one area, and those areas include prenatal and preconception, pediatric, cancer, cardiovascular, neurology, as well as any other of the part of the body that can be affected by cancer and disease. Counselors that specialize in prenatal and preconception help women who are pregnant or looking to become pregnant, become educated on the risks their child will face of having certain diseases, and make a decision on whether or not to move forward with a pregnancy, and consider other options of having a child. Pediatric counselors work with families and their children to assess the chances children have of having certain diseases and treatment to help prevent and lessen those diseases. Counselors in cancer look at the genetics of cancer patients, and those family member, are trying to determine the next steps that need to be taken, and also help those patients and family through the difficult time. Cardiovascular counselors focus on patients that have diseases involving the heart or circulatory system. And counselors that specialize in neurology help patients with diseases of the brain and nervous system (National Society of Genetic Counselors). Those are just a small sample of all the specializations of genetic counseling. Just as any other field in medicine, it is more efficient for professionals to become experts in individual areas than to have a general knowledge of every …show more content…

By definition, genetics is a term that refers to the study of genes and the role genes play inheritance: the way traits and conditions are passed down from parent to offspring. Genetics help families and medical professionals understand why diseases, like sickle cell anemia and cystic fibrosis, are inherited and what to do about these diseases. (National Human Genome Research Institute). These diseases are caused by mistakes in DNA, or mutations. Genetic counselors use different tests to find these mistake, diagnose disease, and help patients treat and cope with their

Get Access