To raise awareness for February Heart Month, I am joined by Amy Sturm, a cardiovascular genetic counselor. She has 15 years of experience in cardiovascular genetics, personalized genomics, research, and education. Amy is the Director of Cardiovascular Genomic Counseling and Professor at Geisinger Health System's Genomic Medicine Institute. There she provides leadership for the scaling up of genomic counseling efforts in the MyCode Community Health Initiative. She serves as the President-elect and the Cardiovascular Genetics Expert at National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC). Amy also works with The Familial Hypercholesterolemia Foundation and The Sudden Arrhythmia Death Syndromes (SADS) Foundation on their important advocacy work, research, and medical education programs.

On this episode, we discuss…..

Roles of a cardiovascular genetic counselor

Inherited cardiovascular diseases

Familial Hypercholesterolemia

Long QT Syndrome

Red flags for an inherited cardiovascular disorder in a family history

Genetic testing including the cascade screening method

Preventative treatments for patients with a positive testing

Importance of testing children

Notifying at-risk relatives of patients

To learn more from Amy, follow her on Twitter and read a few of her blog posts below:

Am I at Risk for Heart Disease?

Familial Hypercholesterolemia: The Common, Inherited Cause of Heart Disease Rarely Talked About

Curious about the patient perspective in cardiac genetic testing process with a genetic counselor? One of her patients also wrote about his genetic testing experience guided by Amy.