Hello, welcome to module eight.
Welcome back from spring break
and congratulations on finishing up your midterms.
Now that I have all of them turned in,
I'll go ahead and grade those
and get those back to you as soon as I can.
And this week,
now that we're sort of transitioning a little bit deeper
into genetics and genomics in the clinical context,
we're going to talk about some
of the ethical, legal and social implications,
which is denoted as ELSI for short.
And some of that are specifically applicable
in the genetics and genomics context.
So there are two lectures.
There's really one main lecture, which is posted,
which kind of goes over some of the basics
of some specific issues associated
with genetic and genomic testing and their implications,
as well as some of the laws that are in place
to protect us from discrimination, genetic discrimination.
And then there's the second lecture is a shorter one
and that is actually just some case studies
to talk about what is and is not protected
by the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act,
or GINA for short.
We have ELSI and GINA this week.
So that's the second one.
That one, as I said, is a bit shorter for a lecture.
And then you have some reading in the required reading,
a couple of sections from the textbook.
And then I have the position statements
from the International Society of Nurses in Genetics
on a number of different topics.
And sort of where they fall along those lines?
And I'm asking you for your assignment this week
to read those position statements
and then to reflect on those for yourself
and in your own practice,
or what you anticipate will be your practice
if you're not currently having a practice.
And write a reflection paper on a particular topic
that seems either it's something
that you see a lot in what you do today,
or something that maybe, for one reason or another,
seems of great interest to you
that I would encourage you to go ahead
and do a little bit of research on that.
So you have the position statement.
You may want to just check a few other sources
and make sure you have the most up-to-date information
on things
and then reflect on it and write a reflection paper.
Reflection paper is something written in the first person,
more of a narrative type of writing assignment.
And just asking you to again, reflect on it.
Write then how you feel, what your position is on this?
When we're talking about ethics,
as I'm sure you're aware,
there's never really just one right answer, right?
There are many sides to consider,
many positions to consider.
So I encourage you to think about it
and really reflect and write down your thoughts on that.
So that's the assignment for this week.
There's no quiz this week.
Because again this kind of material's really best
to reflect on,
think about for yourself
and not so much a multiple-choice type of question,
would be appropriate for this.
So really think about it for yourself,
for your own practice
and that will come through in your reflection.
And then also the discussion board.
The discussion board,
I will encourage you to post something
that either you've seen,
or experienced something that you'd like
to share with others,
or get their perspective on.
Maybe it's something, you post something this week
on the discussion board related
to what you're writing your reflection paper on.
Or in doing some research for your reflection paper,
you come across something
that you'd like to get other people's feedback on,
or you just wanna comment on.
So I encourage you
to use the discussion board early and often,
especially in a week
when we're talking about ethics and social implications.
I think that's really important
to get everyone's perspective and thoughts on it.
So we can have an expanded base of experience for ourselves,
moving forward with it.
So that is pretty much it.
There's another folder in the required reading
that is optional
and that contains a couple of papers
that I pulled that might be useful
if you want to look up some more information
on some of those different topics
that are covered in the position statements
that are included in there.
So look at that, you can pull some other,
of course, pull any resources
that you'd like to use to help you research it.
But that's basically,
those additional papers are there for you to use
if you're interested in reading a little bit more.
So, yeah, I think then with that,
we're pretty much all set for this week.
And I really look forward
to hearing your thoughts and perspectives, your experience,
even just your gut reactions on things
and kind of talking
through some of these situations together.
And then that's gonna set us up
for the rest of basically the second half of the course,
we're gonna be diving into some more specific areas.
And how genetics and genomics are starting to play a role
in different practices and settings?
As well as looking at genetic testing across the lifespan
and how it's starting to play a greater role in medicine?
With that, I will say goodbye.
And yeah, let me know
if you have any questions along the way
and I look forward to reading all the discussions
on the discussion board.
Thanks so much, bye.