Representation Matters: Increasing Diversity within Genetic Counseling

Patient Stories with Grey Genetics

Bryana Rivers is a second year genetic counseling student in the University of Cincinnati Genetic Counseling Program. As an African American female in a field that is >90% White, Bryana has a passion for increasing diversity within the profession of genetic counseling. Bryana talks about possible reasons for the lack of diversity within the field, ways this might be addressed, and shares her own path to the field of genetic counseling.

Story Reference Points:

Bryana’s experience at her first NSGC annual conference @ 1:45

Bryana’s path to the field of genetic counseling and experience as a GC Assistant at Hopkins @ 3:23

Why does diversity matter? @ 6:53

Bryana’s own experiences as a patient who is an ethnic minority @ 8:26

How race came up in one of Bryana’s genetic counseling sessions @ 11:06

Less obvious impacts of race on genetic counseling sessions @ 15:59

Why is genetic counseling so White? How can we diversify? @ 17:40

Representation Matters-- and the experience of attending the Minority Genetics Professionals Meetup at NSGC @ 21:56

Gender diversity within genetic counseling… a topic for another podcast?! @ 24:32

The makeup of Bryana’s genetic counseling class & contrast with her undergrad experience @ 26:31

What White female genetic counselors should understand about diversity @ 28:49

Links and Resources Bryana’s blog post: ”This Is What I Know. Now What Can We Do? – Racial Diversity in Genetic Counseling”

Articles cited by Bryana:

Studying the Needles in the Haystack: A Qualitative Study of African-American and Latino Genetic Counselors. Amanda Kass and Larissa Veres. Human Genetics Theses and Capstones. The Joan H. Marks Graduate Program in Human Genetics. May 2016.

Diversity in genetic counseling: past, present and future. Mittman Is. Downs K. Journal of Genetic Counseling. 2008 Aug;17(4):301-13.

Connect with Bryana on Twitter@GcBry

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