Making Sense of Genetics

 Before you come to the session it would be really useful to if you would read at least one of the following documents. I hope you will chose one or more of them according to your preferred style of thinking about medicine

I have put a brief description with each one.

The Curriculum Statement from the college about genetics. This gives some introduction to genetics in Primary Care, and states what we all should know.

The full link is available here http://www.rcgp.org.uk/PDF/curr_6_Genetics_in_Primary_Care.pdf . I have taken the substance out of the middle – here (corecurrstat6).

 Ethical debate - Refusing to provide a prenatal test: can it ever be ethical? This is a recent BMJ article discussing some of the ethics around a particular genetic request. (BMJhuntethics) 

Will Genetics Revolutionize Medicine? An editorial from the NEJM from 2000 discussing whether genetics ever will revolutionise medicine in the way some geneticists have been saying. It even has a discussion about relative and absolute risks! (geneticsrevolutionNEJM)

 What GPs think   -  A qualitative study from 1999 in the BMJ which looked at what GPs felt about the statements which were being made about genetics in primary care. I don’t think they have changed much to-day. (groundedtheorygenetics) 

On the day we will gallop through some facts, before looking at some specific cases