Genetic testing is now the standard of care for common diseases such as
and
, predicting risk and enabling earlier and more effective patient care. It’s an exciting revolution in patient care that has far-reaching potential and continues to grow and expand. But in Canada, we are not using all of our health human resources to take advantage of this important transformation in healthcare.
What’s missing are nurses.
Nurses are consistently rated the most
and are the
in Canada, providing care to the most vulnerable and
patients.
At the beginning of the revolution in genetics, nurses were educated to offer
. But the educational opportunities have not kept pace. Genomics services have become siloed, and Canadians are now unnecessarily waiting for care and answers to their common genetics questions.
Nurses are ideally positioned to ensure that patients have access to accurate genetic information about their disease conditions and care options – but they no longer receive adequate training. Our governments, professional societies and post-secondary institutions need to work together and find resources to address this significant gap.
According to the Canadian Nursing and Genomics Initiative (CNGI), Canadian nurses lack crucial supports in their basic and continuing education about genomics when compared to nurses in other countries,
, where
to provide information on condition, inheritance and treatment options for patients using relevant genetic counselling skills.