From Medscape Business of Medicine

Primary Care: You DO Need to Know About Genomics -- Here's Why

Neil Canavan

Posted: 10/04/2011

Introduction

Many primary care physicians think that genomics is not relevant to their daily practice. But thanks to new information in the field, not knowing about genomics invites potential medical harm to your primary care patients, and just as ominous, malpractice risks loom.
Eight years ago, scientists from the Human Genome Project announced that the entire genetic blueprint for the molecular construction of a human being had been committed to paper.
Since that time, hardly an issue of The New England Journal of Medicine goes by without explanations of what these instructions mean and how they might inform your clinical decisions when the protein, the person, goes awry.

Considerable clinically applicable progress has been made. In 2011, the genetic signposts of disease have been read for diagnostic aspects of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and prostate cancer.
For primary care physicians in this new genetic age, it's time to get your feet wet. Though today's rate of translation of new genetic mechanisms into cogent bedside medicine can be deemed as a trickle, pools are forming, and the flood is certain to come.

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