Preparing genetic counselors to serve Native American communities

Abstract

As a medical specialty, genetic counseling (GC) espouses cultural sensitivity, a patientcentered approach, and an eye for the individual, familial, and community-wide implications of genetics and genomics in medicine. Within the past decades, the field of GC has recognized and attempted to address a need for the greater diversity of providers and practice settings that will help to address health inequities across underrepresented communities (Channaoui et al., 2020). Accreditation for GC training programs mandates equipping students with multicultural sensitivity and knowledge on health disparities. Currently however, there are limited published data about how GC programs are accomplishing these aims for Native American individuals and communities. Furthermore, there are limited published data on the unique needs and perspectives of Native Americans who may seek GC services. This disconnect may pose barriers for genetic counselors who aim to provide respectful and relevant care to Native American patients. Education of GC students is one important way to set the tone for a lifetime of practice and to inspire awareness and action toward alleviating disparities. Thus, we surveyed GC training programs in North America to investigate how they are working to (a) address disparities in Native American professional representation and student enrollment, (b) deliver culturally relevant curricula and clinical opportunities that serve the needs of Native Americans, and (c) positively engage Native American communities in North America. We found that reported recruitment efforts, curricula content, clinical opportunities, and community engagement efforts to address the needs of Native American are limited across GC training programs surveyed. By bringing awareness to current methods, success factors, and barriers in this space, we hope to open the door for meaningful partnerships between leaders of Native American communities and GC training programs in the pursuit of greater equity.

Experience conducting a community‐engaged student research project involving an underrepresented community: A reflective essay

“…I also learned about the injustices that caused Indigenous communities to be apprehensive about genetics (Bowekaty & Davis, 2003; Dukepoo, 1999; Garrison, 2013; Popejoy & Fullerton, 2016). This motivated me to scour the medical literature for information on Indigenous community access to clinical genetics, which yielded only two publications tangentially related to the topic (Dukepoo, 1999; Freeman et al, 2021). This essay is a reflection of my experiences having no initial connections to the Indigenous communities in the United States and Canada and the approaches taken to build a community‐engaged project aimed at understanding awareness of clinical genetics in Indigenous healthcare.…”