#239 Duty To Warn with Janice Berliner

We are joined again by Janice Berliner joining us again on DNA Today. She was a guest on Episode 152 where we talked about her debut novel, Brooke’s Promise. In this episode we are chatting about her second novel, In Good Conscience, which features genetic counseling!

Aside from being a novelist, Janice Berliner is a board certified genetic counselor with more than 32 years of experience. In her roles as both a clinician and as the Director of the Master of Science in Genetic Counseling Program at Bay Path University. Her novels derive from her expertise working with families facing the risk of disease, and the intensely personal and life-altering nature genetic illness can have on family relationships. 

On This Episode We Discuss:

How Janice’s genetic counseling experience influenced and inspired her while writing In Good Conscience

The concept of “Duty To Warn” and how this applies in the genetics space

Protections that celebrities have against people sharing their private information in public media spaces

Support and resources available to genetic counselors when facing complex situations involving the duty to warn

How advancements in genetic testing technologies and the availability of direct-to-consumer genetic testing impact the duty to warn

Tease of Janice’s next novel

Advice for applicants on matching from a program director

During the interview Janice mentioned a few cases of breached health data from healthcare workers. In 2007, Palisades Medical Center in New Jersey suspended 27 employees for a month for looking at George Clooney’s medical records after he had been treated for injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident (NY Times). In 2008, UCLA Medical Center fired or suspended more than 25 employees, including 6 physicians, for snooping in Britney Spears’ medical records during her stay in their psychiatric unit (LA Times). Again in 2010, UCLA Medical Center was fined $95,000 for failing to stop employees from accessing Michael Jackson's records. Two hospital workers and two contract employees were terminated (LA Times). 

Janice also mentioned the National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC) Code of Ethics. We both recommended GC Prep (one of our sponsors) for mentorship and resources on genetic counseling graduate school application process. GC Prep’s Mikayla Stoecker and Janelle Villiers were guests on Episodes #193 and #194 sharing application advice. DNA Today’s Patreon also includes one-on-one mentorship with our host Kira Dineen, you can sign up here. 

Kira also mentioned a few other DNA Today episodes including #234 Genetic Counseling History: 1st NSGC Conference and #235 Genetic Counseling History: ABGC Formation, 

To learn more about Janice and In Good Conscience, visit her ​​website, or check her out on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. 

We will also give away 5 copies of her book on our social media channels. Search @DNATodayPodcast to enter on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter! There’s a pic of our host, Kira, with the book on the beach, yes it’s a great beach read! Can’t wait to see if you won, buy the book here on Amazon (don’t forget to leave a review there and on Goodreads). 

Stay tuned for the next new episode of DNA Today on June 9th, 2023. New episodes are released every Friday. In the meantime, you can binge over 235 other episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, streaming on the website, or any other podcast player by searching, “DNA Today”. Episodes since 2021 are also recorded with video which you can watch on our YouTube channel.  

DNA Today is hosted and produced by Kira Dineen. Our social media lead is Corinne Merlino. Our video lead is Amanda Andreoli. Our Outreach Intern is Sanya Tinaikar. Our Social Media Intern is Kajal Patel. And our Graphic Designer Ashlyn Enokian.

See what else we are up to on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and our website, DNAToday.com. Questions/inquiries can be sent to [email protected]. 

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