Medical genetics: Development of ethical dimensionsin clinical practice and research

Abstract

A Witness Seminar on the emergence of complex ethical issues in clinical genetics practice, the evolution of these issues over several decades of advances in medical genetics research and social change, and the professionalization of this field. Chaired by Professor Anneke Lucassen (Southampton) with an introduction by Professor Richard Ashcroft (QMUL). '… most of us going in as clinicians and coming out as clinical geneticists had absolutely zero grounding in philosophy, psychology, or any other kind of ‘ology’ really.' Professor Peter Harper ‘… the whole healthcare system is geared up to the individual, largely, to the person with a symptom who comes and needs to be assessed and investigated and treated and so on. … the true patient in the genetics clinic is the family, not only the individual.’ Professor Peter Turnpenny