Dr. Robert Marion on Physician Knowledge of Genetics

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted August 27, 2009 in Books About DNA, Personalities with DNA

In the last part of my interview with clinical geneticist and author Dr. Robert Marion, he touches on the inadequate way in which medical schools teach genetics (a topic near and dear to Dr. Steve Murphy’s heart).

How do you expect the genome revolution to change the way you practice medicine?

The genome revolution will lead to a second revolution, this one in medicine.  Rather than being a field in which physicians wait for symptoms and signs to develop, allowing us to react and treat them, we will know, through newborn or prenatal screening, which mutations and polymorphisms are present, giving us information about the likelihood of the development of disease later in life.  And rather than being reactive, medicine will become predictive, with physicians focusing on ways of manipulating the environment in order to prevent those alterations in the genes from manifesting diseases. 

Unfortunately, the lesson of the genome revolution has not yet broken through to medical school education committees.  The traditional way in which physicians are trained will soon become outmoded; we geneticists need to begin to lobby to change the curricula of medical schools now, so that the physicians who care for us tomorrow will have the necessary knowledge to be able to approach this brave new world of medicine.

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For more about genetics in medical education, see:

The dawning era of personalized medicine exposes a gap in medical education by Keyan Salari at Speaking of Medicine, a PLoS Medicine Community Blog

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The full round-up of posts on Dr. Robert Marion and his new book, Genetic Rounds:

• Genetic Rounds by Dr. Robert Marion
• Medical Geneticist Dr. Robert Marion on Writing
• Dr. Robert Marion on Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis
• Dr. Robert Marion on Complex Genetic Diseases
• Dr. Robert Marion on Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing

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Comment by Steven Murphy MD

2009-09-05 09:25:00

Great Man. Great Ideas. He is a role model for me. What a fantastic man and what a great doctor.

-Steve
http://www.thegenesherpa.blogspot.com

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