Real voices: healthcare

Anaar Sajoo, genetic counsellor

Anaar Sajoo studied science at university, but wanted a career outside of the laboratory. She tells Chrissie Giles about life as a genetic counsellor, advising people about their risk of being affected by different inherited diseases.

What do you do?
I am a principal genetic counsellor and have been working in the field for 15 years.

Why did you become a genetic counsellor?
I did a science degree at university. I liked the science part but I didn't want to spend all my time in the lab, and wanted some human contact, so I trained as a genetic counsellor.

What does your job entail?
Some genetic counsellors specialise, but I cover most areas, including prenatal diagnosis, cancer genetics and neurological conditions. The diseases I counsel on include cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy and Huntington's disease. About half of what genetic counsellors do is to study families with lots of cancer. We test for genetic mutations that could be increasing a family's risk of linked cancers - we find these in around 20 per cent of the families. This can be heartening work as this kind of knowledge can help subsequent cancers be detected early, and there are often therapies available.

How do you break bad news to patients?
People often think that giving bad news is the hardest part of my job, but it's not something I do that often. Also, what we think of as 'bad' may not be so for the patient. When we do have 'life and-death' news to give, we plan with the patient how they'd like to hear it - we can phone them before we see them in person, for example.

How has genetic testing changed over your career?
We don't have cures for genetic conditions yet, but there's been a lot of progress - such as increased life expectancies, better treatments and new ways to test - so we have to stay up to date. We are guided by the family, who deal with the condition first-hand, every day. Genetic counsellors translate complex medical and genetic information. Our advantage lies in listening to what they are going through, and offering a combination of support and genetic information.

For information on a career in genetic counselling, see the AGNC website.

This article is part of the online content for ‘Big Picture: Careers From Biology’ and originally appeared in ‘Big Picture: Genes, Genomes and Health’ (2010). Find out more about the ‘Big Picture’ series.