First class of genetic counseling graduates at MUSC will help meet growing demand

A new Master of Science in Genetic Counseling program at the Medical University of South Carolina has more than doubled the number of trainees who can become certified genetic counselors in the state each year. That’s a big deal in a field where possibilities – and job openings – can seem endless.

“There's a lot of demand for genetic counselors in the workforce, and we expect that to continue to increase with precision health initiatives and tailored precision treatments,” said program director and certified genetic counselor Kimberly Foil.

Genetic counselors help people understand how inherited conditions may affect them and their families. The counselors look at the patients’ personal and family health histories, then discuss whether they want or need genetic testing. If they move forward with genetic testing, it can help them make decisions, take steps to prevent health problems they’re genetically predisposed to and get care tailored to their genetic makeups.

Only one other school in South Carolina has a genetic counseling training program, and Foil said it graduates nine students per year. MUSC’s program has 14 graduates this year. The next graduating class will include 16 students, and the one after that has 20 students.

“With the clinical need that we had here at MUSC for genetic counselors and the demand nationally, we were having trouble filling positions. So we thought it worked nicely to develop our own training pipeline.”

That pipeline will deliver people who love the combination of science and the human touch in genetic counseling. “We tell all our prospective students and current students that you have to be committed to lifelong learning. And I think that's why a lot of people love the profession. You get to play detective; you get to learn all the time,” Foil said.

 

That appealed to Matthew Stern, a student in the first graduating class. He explained his interest in shifting from working as an associate professor of biology at Winthrop University to becoming a genetic counselor.

“I had known others who had gone from the Ph.D., biomedical science or academia routes into genetic counseling. And everybody loved it. And so it had always been in the back of my mind, and I just had never really had the right opportunity to do that,” he said.

“The biggest reason I was able to pull the trigger was that MUSC’s program is online. And so that really made it possible for me to finally do this.”

While the coursework is online, the program’s clinical rotations, where students get to see what it’s like to work in different areas of genetic counseling, are in person. 

Those areas cover a range of medical specialties. Foil described some of the key options for the graduates’ careers. “Oncology is probably the largest genetic counseling setting, working in cancer, genetics and genomics,” she said.

“There are hereditary cancers like the BRCA genes, for example, or Lynch syndrome, where determining that hereditary cause can be helpful in their treatment plan and explaining why a cancer has happened. But even better, if we can identify it before somebody develops cancer, we may be able to prevent that cancer from happening,” she said.

“There are also genetic counselors working in prenatal care, pediatrics, cardiology, neurology immunology, endocrinology – all the medical specialties have a growing need for genetic counselors.”

Stern is ready to become one of them. “I think the field is really poised to expand and explode as genetic testing becomes increasingly utilized.”

That utilization will include increasingly nuanced information to help patients – information that needs explaining. “Having somebody who can help you understand not only what it means scientifically or from a genetic standpoint, but what it means for your health and your life is important,” Stern said.

Foil said getting more people into the medical field who can do that is part of a bigger picture for MUSC. “I think MUSC is really forward-thinking and innovative and anticipating the needs of not only now but the future of health care."