Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Medical School Genetics Course Lacking

In the article, "Study finds positive trends in medical genetics education", in Science Daily they were talking about how the genetics curricula was not where it should be in medical schools. The genetics courses are increasing and evolving because right know most of the genetics is taught in the first two years of school and little to none in the third and fourth years. They are looking for new innovative ways to incorporate genetics into the curricula. More then 40% of the medical schools that participated in the survey in the U.S. and Canada do not teach the important topics of genetics. They are saying that it is necessary for future doctors to be literate in genomics. They just want to increase the topic of genetics in the program. They want to build concrete steps to make sure that the future physicians fully exposed to genomic medicine. The educators feel responsible to prepare their students to be ready to be in the clinical field and be able to understand the genetics of medicine.


It is extremely important for doctors to understand the genomic medicine because that enables doctors to have a broader understanding of medicine and diagnostics. The fact that 40% of schools do not incorporate genetics in their curricula already, really took me back because I think that it is a basis that should be learned. If it is taken as an undergrad, I think in medical school they should go in depth. But, in order to be successful at genetics, they also have to have digital literacy, because most of genetics is done through computers. That is something that I think that they should have mentioned in the paper. Personally, I think that everyone should take a programming class because not only does it increase your digital literacy, but also programming increases your problem solving ability. I took a programming class in high school and in college and although they were tough classes, programming is a good skill to acquire. So along with making sure genetics is incorporated into the medical school curricula I think programming should be as well.

1 comment:

  1. I like this post because it takes a different look at genetics. With many college majors I feel that students are not 100% prepared for the field they are about to enter. While a lot of knowledge is learned from work experience, understanding the basic processes in genetics is essential for understand and furthering research.

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