Genetic Counselling, Ethical Issues in Management of Hemoglobinopathies
1. Describe the risk assessment in genetic counselling. (how to diagnose the disease) (why is it important to have a genetics counsellor)
Genetic counselling is a way of communication between a doctor and patient and this may include parents/family. The importance of having a genetic counselor is so that the counselor receiving the genetic tests and family history is there to help advice patients (and parents/family) about the outcomes of the tests along with management and treatments of the genetic disorders that run in the family. The genetic counsellor is supposed to be knowledgeable in being able to understand the medical facts in relation to: the diagnosis, prognosis,
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State the major ethical and policy issues in medical genetics.
There are many problems associated with medical genetics.
Ethical problems associated with genetic testing include prenatal genetic test. This is when couples are tested to help avoid having a serious hereditary disorder in their offspring. This is an ethical problem due to the decision that may result in having to terminate the pregnancy.
Another genetic testing that has ethical problems includes those people that are tested for predisposing diseases that either lead to later onset (in the case of adult patient) or adult onset (in the case of a child patient). This leads to many ethical issues such as whether or not the patient wants to know if he/she is at risk for a certain disorder. If they find out that they are at risk than they may become depressed and/or make better life decisions (about marriage and life). Others that find out that they are spared from having the disorder maybe relived however they maybe at guilt by seeing close relatives suffering from what could have possible than their
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This was sought so that certain kinds of traits showed in the child such as social, ethnic, and economic prejudices. Things that we now see as lack of education were believed to be in relation to genetics and were described to be familial “feeble-mindedness”. There was difficulty in the scientific approval of what traits/characteristics were hereditary and to what extend they were hereditary. This difficulty was in large due to the fact that genetics was not understood correctly as some of the traits depend on the environmental