IT’S ALL IN THE GENES
Romy Kerr from Genetic Insight explains how understanding your DNA can protect your health, and your family’s future.
PHOTOS DEBORAH DE GRAAF
It was while watching her mum support a young couple going through the heartbreaking decision to terminate a pregnancy due to a serious congenital abnormality that Romy Kerr decided she too wanted to help people through some of life’s biggest and most distressing challenges. She was studying science at university and, in her words, stumbled into a genetics course by chance and quickly fell in love with it. Even still, she knew she didn’t want to work in a lab all day.
“I enjoyed the people side of genetics,” she says. “I wanted to sit with people who are making some of the hardest choices of their lives. They need love and they need kindness.”
This led her to the field of genetic counselling. It’s a relatively small field in New Zealand, but one that is in high demand overseas. Its impact can be profound for those facing potentially life-changing information.
“Genetic counselling is the process of taking a person through genetic testing for a number of different reasons,” Romy explains. “Genetic counsellors provide information about a genetic condition that might be in their family or help someone understand a new diagnosis. We provide information about their options and how a genetic result might impact them and their family. We also help with decisions around managing health after a diagnosis, or making decisions around having children without passing on a genetic condition.”
Romy says that genetic counsellors are an information source, but are also a source of support because many of the people that she sees are having to make increasingly scary decisions. They may be learning they are at risk of a condition that has no cure, or that their children may be at risk of a severe genetic condition.
“The topics are often quite heavy and emotional, and so we’re unpacking what that means for that person,” she says, noting that its impact can be profound in offering preventive options and emotional support for those facing potentially life-changing information.
For people with a known family condition, like breast cancer, for example, a simple swab test can put their mind at ease.
“If someone has been anxious about cancer their whole lives, they can now do something practical to check their risk and then find out early if they have cancer,” Romy says. “People have had genetic testing, decided to proactively take their ovaries out due to high risk, and have found cancer at that time that they just would never have known about. It saved their lives.”
