My background
My private practice has been running since 2017. I have also worked as a genetic counsellor at Groote Schuur Hospital, been involved in training medical students and supervised genetic counselling students’ projects.
Since 2017, I have volunteered as the genetic counsellor on two annual colorectal cancer surveillance trips to the Northern Cape, where we screen about 100 people with Lynch Syndrome for colorectal, endometrial, and other cancers which are more common in people with a mutation in a gene causing Lynch Syndrome. My role on this Outreach initiative is to identify people who are at risk of carrying a mutation and to counsel them and offer testing if appropriate.
I have a double masters’ degree – the first, completed in 1990, is a MSc (Biotech) from Wits University, which qualified me in laboratory techniques of molecular biology (yes – I know how to clone a gene). Prior to this I studied a BSc (Bot and Zoo) and am a qualified teacher who taught for a year before my first masters’ degree, which led me to doing research in Agriculture and included a few years in the Wits Department of Genetics.
My second, a MSc Med (Genetic counselling) obtained from UCT in 2015, qualifies me to see patients with questions about their personal and familial risks for rare diseases, and to facilitate genetic testing after a thorough evaluation and discussion about the pros and cons of testing for each individual. Through this process I help people to make informed decisions about their health.
Between the two degrees, I taught young children from the age of 6 months to swim – in group sessions with a caregiver in the water. This was hugely rewarding, and I realised that I enjoy working with people, but ultimately, I became totally waterlogged and felt the need to retrain in a more intellectually stimulating endeavour. A career as a genetic counsellor was the obvious route, as it combines my love for science, education and people.