Teaching Cell and Gene Therapy in Genetic Counseling Programs: Survey Findings and Suggested Practical Resources for...

As cell and gene therapies (CGTs) advance through clinical trials into clinical practice, it becomes increasingly important for genetic counselors (GCs) to understand these therapeutics to discuss them with patients. Despite the apparent need for GCs to obtain CGT-related education, little is known about the training GCs receive on CGT topics in their graduate training. To address this, we performed a cross-sectional quantitative survey of North American genetic counseling training programs. The survey inquired about the extent of training on CGT-related topics as well as barriers and facilitators that influence such training. Leadership from 45 of 65 (69.2%) genetic counseling programs completed the survey. Most currently provide some form of CGT training, although for more than half of the programs, it is relatively new content added to their curriculum within the past 5 years. Most programs provide training on all subtopics explored; however, the teaching methodology used and the number of exposures in each program varied. The most frequent barrier to adding training was lack of time in students' schedules (28.9%) and the most frequent facilitator was access to professionals in the CGT field (53.3%). Despite the consensus that CGT education is important, this study found that many factors influence the robustness of a program's training on these topics, including a lack of consistency in educational content and training modalities among graduate programs. These results and those of previous studies suggest that a centralized resource available to GC students and program leadership could increase access to information about CGT and improve education in this area.