Gemma Chandratillake

Wellcome Connecting Science | Various | Empowering People: Genetic Counselling in Focus

An important part of multidisciplinary teams

A trained genetic counsellor, Dr Gemma Chandratillake is Education & Training Lead for the East of England NHS Genomic Medicine Centre. She is also Course Director for the Institute of Continuing Education’s Genomic Medicine programme.

In this film, Gemma explores how genetic counsellors work as part of multidisciplinary teams in the healthcare system and the growing need to train other healthcare professionals in genomics, enabling them to understand genetic results and their implications for a person’s healthcare pathway.

Portrait

Chrystal Ding, 2019

As an educator and researcher Gemma spends much of her time working with other healthcare professionals to understand training needs and knowledge gaps, and then developing and delivering the tools and teaching required to meet them. As genetic and genomic testing become more widespread and integrated with other clinical areas, there is a growing importance to have a healthcare workforce that understands genomics and can consider the implications of having these tests.