| Primary care providers will play an increasingly important role in the provision of genetic services. They will have an increasing responsibility to assess risk, order and interpret genetic tests, provide genetic counseling, and manage and treat individuals and families with genetic diseases. The purpose of this study was to ascertain how primary care providers want to learn about new genetic information and what type of information is most important to their practices. A survey of 99 primary care physicians was conducted and results tabulated using the SPSS software package. Of the physicians who participated, 95% replied that genetics will become important to extremely important in their practice in the near future. They felt that a variety of sources would be useful in deciding whether to add genetic testing to their patients' care, with 76% indicating CME courses and 73% indicating practice guidelines as sources they would rely upon, followed by professional association websites (56%), professional journals or newsletters (52%), conferences (48%) and genetic websites (47%). Aside from internal medicine physicians' lower preference for using practice guidelines developed by genetics professionals, these results did not differ between types of medical practice, location or years in practice. Therefore, a variety of methods, with an emphasis on developing guidelines and continuing education courses, will be most effective in providing genetic information to primary care providers on an ongoing basis. |
