First Mentor Visit!

During my mentor visit, Mrs. Reeves and I discussed ideas for a final product. After discussing guidelines and requirements for final product we discussed possible products. She suggested two ideas for questionnaires and possible awareness programs. We began our meeting by discussing the scope of psychology within epigenetics. She pointed out that research is very limited and there are very few topics and feasible products. I noticed this when I was researching last semester and trying to complete my original work. There was enough research to finish my educational program but it would be difficult to continue this semester with the same specificity. I completely agree with her so I decided to focus less on the psychological and epigenetic aspect. She also discussed how this particular subfield isn’t part align with her current job. She works with cancer patients and provides genetic counseling which is different from psychology counseling in epigenetics. After this discussion, and the challenges I faced last semester with a very specific topic, I decided to start on all genetics and work from there. Mrs. Reeves mentioned a case where a mother with a newborn was given morphine, but it metabolized too quickly due to a cytochrome change which caused her baby to die after breastfeeding. I was very shocked by this story and I am really interested in researching this further. The next idea we discussed was creating an awareness program to educate patients and the general public on the actual role of genetic counselors. As we talked Mrs. Reeves and I discussed potential misinformation and misunderstanding of the role of genetic counselors in the public’s perception. I personally thought that genetic counseling was more heavily focused on the counseling part but I learned that genetic counselors typically only see their patients one or twice. They focus more on education and explaining test results and recommendation genetic tests. I also thought that genetic counselors often focused on expecting mothers and newborns, but I learned that even neonatal geneticists don’t focus heavily on recommending actions the mother should take during pregnancy. Mrs. Reeves pointed out that patients often believe genetic counselors advise patients on choices to make during pregnancy and alter genes, however, they mainly focus on explaining test results. I was surprised to hear that that was a common public perception because I didn’t associate genetic counselors with baby modeling or eugenics, however, I learned those are both perceived to be a part of this specialty.