#244 Genetic Counseling History: The 70s

Step into our time machine as we transport you back to the early heydays of genetic counseling (aka the 70s) with our esteemed guest, Virginia Corson. Virginia is a veteran genetic counselor who has weathered the changing tides of this field over the last 50 years, and she's here to share her incredible journey with us. My guest today is Virginia Corson, who is a seasoned genetic counselor. Virginia has spent the vast majority of her career as a prenatal genetic counselor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She has written countless publications with original research, case reports, book chapters, and professional society statements. She earned her Master’s of Science through the OG genetic counseling program, Sarah Lawrence College (which I also graduated from a few years ago).

Get ready to gain an insightful perspective into the pioneering days of the profession, the challenges of a nascent field, and how Virginia carved her niche in a time devoid of the technological conveniences we take for granted today.

We'll be journeying through Virginia's academic odyssey at Sarah Lawrence College's one-year program, packed with clinical rotations and field work. Experience the nascent use of ultrasound in prenatal care and how the advent of molecular testing revolutionized prenatal testing, despite the rather limited scope of genetic counseling during the late 1970s. Virginia’s wealth of knowledge is sure to enlighten us all about the critical importance of the field's continued evolution and development.

In the last leg of our conversation, Virginia uncovers the intriguing aspects of her various clinical rotations and field work, discussing the glaring absence of molecular genetics and cancer genetics courses at the time. She stresses the significance of lifelong learning for genetic counselors and provides a sneak peek into a typical day in her early career. We'll also delve into the evolution of genetic counseling sessions, the ethical and legal considerations during the 1970s, and even a surprising moment when Virginia found herself on the front cover of the Wall Street Journal. So, buckle up for this enlightening chat with Virginia Corson, and get ready to unravel the captivating world of genetic counseling!

Episode Chapters 

(0:00:02) - Exploring Genetic Counseling in the 1970s (12 Minutes)

Virginia Corson, a seasoned genetic counselor with decades of experience in the field, shares her journey of learning about genetic counseling in the 1970s, a time when the field was still in its infancy. We discuss the landscape of the field at the time, with very few places hiring genetic counselors and no computers or emails to make job search easier. Virginia recounts how she sent out 40 individual cover letters to potential employers and eventually got a job offer from Johns Hopkins. We explore the challenges of entering a new field and the changes the profession has gone through over the last 50 years.

(0:11:37) - Prenatal Testing and Genetic Counseling Evolution (6 Minutes)

Virginia Corson shares her experience of attending Sarah Lawrence College's one-year program, which was packed with clinical rotations, field work, and electives. We also explore the early uses of ultrasound in prenatal care and how molecular testing has allowed for more accurate prenatal testing. In the late 1970s, genetic counseling was limited in terms of testing and topics available.

(0:17:39) - Genetic Counseling in the Past (8 Minutes)

Virginia Corson talks about the various clinical rotations and field work she completed as part of the one-year program at Sarah Lawrence College. She had the opportunity to visit Mount Sinai Hospital, Albert Einstein Hospital, and Creedmoor Institute, where she interviewed people at-risk for Huntington's Disease. Virginia also discusses the lack of molecular genetics and cancer genetics courses at the time and the importance of continuing education for genetic counselors. She shares what a typical day was like for her, which included taking family histories, discussing testing options, and navigating the four-week waiting period for amniocentesis results.

(0:25:50) - Evolution of Genetic Counseling (8 Minutes)

We discuss the changes in genetic counseling sessions over the years, from the early 1970s when carrier screening was much simpler to the present day, where there are hundreds of tests offered. Virginia Corson shares the story of her 15 minutes of fame when she was featured on the front cover of the Wall Street Journal in the late 1980s. The journalist wanted to make the article more personal and interviewed her, and how it ended up being a front page article. We also explore the ethical and legal considerations in the 1970s, such as the debate around whether genetic counselors could counsel independently without a doctor present, as well as the establishment of the National Society of Genetic Counselors. Finally, we talk about the exams Virginia and the other geneticists took, which was the same core exam and then a separate genetic counseling exam.

This episode is part of our Genetic Counseling History series backed by the National Society of Genetic Counselors’ Late Career Special Interest Group. Be sure to check out Episode 234 and Episode 235 which explore the first few NSGC conferences and the formation of the American Board of Genetic Counselors. 

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Transcript

This transcript was generated by our partner Podium, please be aware that it may not be entirely accurate. 

0:00:22 - Kira Dineen

Hi, you're listening to DNA Today, a multi-word winning podcast and radio show, where we discover new advances in the world of genetics, from genetic technology like CRISPR to rare diseases, to new research. For over a decade, DNA Today has brought you the voices of leaders in genetics in over 200 episodes. For the past three years, dna Today has won the People's Choice Best Science and Medicine Podcast Award. I'm Kira Denine. I'm a certified genetic counselor and your host. 

In this episode. We're chatting about the field of genetic counseling 50 years ago, in the 1970s. My guest today is Virginia Corson, who is a seasoned genetic counselor. Virginia has spent the vast majority of her career as a prenatal genetic counselor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She's written countless publications with original research, case reports, book chapters, professional society statements you name it. She earned her Masters of Science through the original genetic counseling program, sarah Lawrence College, which I also graduated from a few years ago. This episode is part of our genetic counseling history series, backed by the National Society of Genetic Counselors' Late Career Special Interest Group, so be sure to check out other episodes. Previously we did 234, 235, which explored the first few NSGC conferences and the formation of the American Board of Genetic Counselors, abgc. So links in the show notes for all of those also available at DNAtodaycom. But, jenny, thank you so much for coming on and kind of doing a blast from the past, as I've said before, with so many of your comments. 

0:01:58 - Virgina Corson

Here I'm on pleasure. It's going to be fun. 

0:02:02 - Kira Dineen

Yeah, definitely. So a lot of this like I don't know, because I wasn't a genetic counselor in the 70s. So I love episodes where I get to learn a lot. So when did you first learn about genetic counseling? Because, like, i learned in high school, but it may be different for those that started in the field a while ago, kira, i learned in college and it was a little bit by chance. 

0:02:23 - Virgina Corson

I was a biology major at Princeton and was taking a variety of courses and took exactly one religion course. It was in ethics and this professor each week did a different topic, like abortion or euthanasia or war birth control, and one week he did a topic on genetic counseling And I went whoa, that sounds interesting And I don't even. 

0:02:50 - Kira Dineen

It's a whole class dedicated to it. 

0:02:52 - Virgina Corson

Yeah, a day, i don't even remember exactly what was in that particular course, but the idea of, you know, genetic counseling struck me as a way to combine my science background and working with people. And this was inactually. I looked up my transcript This was in 1971. So I took that course literally, you know, months after the first graduates from the Sarah Lawrence program. So I just happened to be in the right place at the right time to hear about this profession and it stuck in my head And so a couple of years later I thought well, you know, let me give it a try. So it was really funny that I heard about it in something sort of completely different than a science course. 

0:03:33 - Kira Dineen

I was shocked that like at that time there was a whole lecture dedicated to it, like within your course, and I mean that sounds like one of the best courses in college, which is like bioethics And I mean span out a little bit from bio, but that's really interesting And shocking that, yeah, there was like a year after the first graduates of Sarah Lawrence. So you were reallyyou were ahead of the time in terms of learning about it. 

0:03:56 - Virgina Corson

It was early on, for sure, and it's you know, it's one of themy parents kept saying what are you talking about? What is this program you want to go to? Because nobody had heard of genetic counselors at the time. 

0:04:08 - Kira Dineen

Right, and I used to say that when I was telling people I was going into genetic counseling but you actually meant to like know what you knew about this. It was just like you know, probably you know a few dozen people knew about genetic counseling at that point in you know 69, 70, 71. So can you describe the landscape of the genetic counseling field, kind of give us an overview of what it was like in the 70s, because you said you're taking this course like early 70s and then you graduate? you're, you know, you're going through grad school in the 70s, starting your work? I mean, how did the field look, because it's very different than it is now 50 years? Well, very few place. 

0:04:43 - Virgina Corson

Very few hospitals had genetic counselors at that time. So to find a job was quite tricky. And there were. You know, there were no emails, there were no job postings really online, and so what many of us did, including myself, is to take the directory for the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation, called at the time, and that listed genetic centers, and so we would type there were no computers either we would type individually cover letters to each of these places and send out about, you know, 40, or wherever you thought you might want to work. So you just blind sent letters to places you thought might be interested in hiring a genetic counselor. So that's what I did. And then you were lucky. You know, occasionally you would get a phone call. And one day I got a phone call, you know, from Dr Hay-Kazazi in at Johns Hopkins, and I didn't know who he was. Turns out he ended up being a big geneticist, but I had heard of Johns Hopkins, so he said okay and went down and interviewed. 

But it was a time when, you know, i was the first genetic counselor there. They didn't know what I could do, what I couldn't do, so it was a time where genetic counselors had to sort of prove what they could do, had to demonstrate, had to earn respect and then slowly over time got additional responsibilities. So it was really, and there was a little bit of turf war like what could I do versus the physicians, and it was a time where often genetic counselors were sort of coordinating clinics, doing less counseling but doing scheduling, doing more administration than direct counseling. But that then you know, over time worked into greater roles and responsibilities And things like teaching and supervising and writing you know different things that came. But in the beginning years it was a lot of clinic coordination and sort of explaining general inheritance patterns really Yeah, and, as we'll get into, like, where were the specialties at at that point? 

0:06:53 - Kira Dineen

but before I get into that, i mean, how did the advancements in genetic testing and technology Impact the 70s? like, were there any notable breakthroughs you can, you know, think of or anything that really was influencing the field around this time, you know? 

0:07:07 - Virgina Corson

I don't. I don't remember breakthroughs per se. What I what I sort of do remember and this is probably from my own job was sort of advances like Carrier screening for Tay-Sachs disease. That was truly coming into its own and it was the first real carrier screening that we offered at that time, based on ethnic background. And Hopkins had, i believe, the first or one of the first outreach programs in synagogues to offer Tay-Sachs screening. That was be Before my time. 

But when I came to Hopkins They were just starting to set up a clinic where Weekly couples could come in or individuals to have their blood drawn for Tay-Sachs carrier screening. So that was sort of a big Focus at that time and it was a little bit kind of off the grid. In other words, we didn't have phlebotomists. You know people would come in. I'd grab a doctor to draw a blood sample Maybe doctor, because as you know one of the fellows draw a blood sample night hand, carry the blood over to the lab. We didn't have billing systems. We asked people for donations to the Tay-Sachs And then results came back to us and I would send out letters. I don't know if it was even truly in some kind of electronic medical system. 

It was really a little bit, you know, off the grid in terms of trying to get it organized, but that that kind of screening was a big focus at the time. There was also in my job in pediatrics initially, great expertise in metabolic disorders, so the newborn screening was expanding. More conditions were being diagnosed. We followed children that had special diets and we would see those families frequently. So from from my memory It was more an era of metabolic genetics, biochemical genetics. There was really no DNA testing, no molecular testing. So that came later and it wasn't even really till the 90s that that became such a big part of genetic counseling and that then led to expansion of positions in oncology and Cardiology, you know, in these other specialties that Now had Molecular testing to be able to offer to families and that was perfect for genetic counselors to explain. 

0:09:31 - Kira Dineen

Yeah, because the field and correct me if I'm wrong kind of more started in the prenatal area and then expanded out into like Pediatrics and then cancer. So in the 70s Was it really mostly prenatal and a little pediatric like so I was, i was hired in pediatrics. 

0:09:48 - Virgina Corson

So it was. It was, in my mind, pediatrics and also prenatal. in my position In pediatrics I worked for three years at Hopkins and then they were reorganizing the prenatal clinic, which did exist, but it wasn't really staffed by people with genetics backgrounds. Interestingly, it was pediatricians and obstetricians that were staffing that service and it was felt that we needed better genetics organization of that clinic. So The people who were involved left at that time, or where I asked to leave, i'm not sure. 

Dr Kassadzian became the director of that clinic and then I switched to become prenatal and for me it was somewhat of a lateral switch from pediatrics to prenatal. But it was a whole different area for me. So it was learning a whole different you know kind of counseling and at that time we hired a pediatric counselor. And then, and then later at the end of the 70s, there was a DNA diagnostic lab at Johns Hopkins that started to offer DNA testing, initially just for the hemoglobin Apathies, and a genetic counselor was hired in that laboratory. So sort of by the end of the 70s we had three genetic counselors at Hopkins and then The next, the next counselor to be hired was in the adult genetics clinic and that was dr Victor mccusick's clinic, so Okay that's a name that was, you know, one of many geneticists at Hopkins that I was privileged to work with, but many of us think of him sort of as the father of genetics or The father of sort of clinical human genetics. 

0:11:30 - Kira Dineen

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean people in my generation know the name mccusick, so I mean that's that definitely still holds a lot to it. So and I'm just like curious so in Prenatal, when you were kind of after three years you're pediatric and then you kind of switched to prenatal, all within Hopkins, but I mean, what would you even talk about in sessions and like what kind of testing could you offer back then? Because a lot of DNA Sequencing like that wasn't a thing, that. 

0:11:55 - Virgina Corson

So at that time it was pretty much amniocentesis or nothing. It was chromosome risks, so advanced maternal age, perhaps a previous child with a chromosome abnormality. There were some biochemical tests that we could do on amniocytes, so for example, for Tay-Sachs disease one could do prenatal testing, but truly there were no molecular tests that we could really offer. Then by the end of the 70s Maybe sickle cell through that DNA lab I mentioned could be done and then eventually Thalassemia. But we didn't really. You know it was. People didn't have options then. So we could talk about, you know, if you had a child with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, we could talk about what the recurrence risk was. We could do an amniocentesis to see the sex of the fetus, but we really couldn't do a test to determine, you know, whether the fetus had inherited a gene or You know was was healthy in terms of that situation. So It was. 

0:12:57 - Kira Dineen

So it's all karyotypes basically, and then, and then the molecular, or You know the biochemical if there was something like taste actually and then the molecular initially was linkage. 

0:13:09 - Virgina Corson

You know we didn't have specific gene mutations but we could link variations In the gene to the actual mutation and so that was something. But it's still, you know, might have had an error rate up to five percent, this kind of thing. So in the early days of molecular we didn't know specific mutations But we knew where the gene was and we could figure out what was nearby and so we could offer linkage analysis. But yes, early on it was, an ultrasound was available, but very rudimentary. When I started doing prenatal, amusingly, ultrasound for localization for an amniocentesis was done in one area and then the patient was moved to labor and delivery, another area For the actual amniocentesis I think they thought perhaps it was more sterile or something, but you would locate a spot and then two hours later do the amniose sounds in retrospect completely crazy. 

Wow, so they didn't use ultrasound while they did Wow, Right, but of course yeah and then of course over time ultrasound got you know, much better at looking at the anatomy of the baby, you know being able to look for birth defects or recurrence risk for skeletal abnormalities. But early on you know You could measure And you could sort of locate a spot for an amnia. But it was, it was not not very advanced in the beginning. 

0:14:35 - Kira Dineen

I Mean, that makes sense because even, like you know, i've talked to my mom about, like her pregnancies of me and my brother and and even in you know, i'm 28, so you know, 29 years ago and she was pregnant with me. Like, even in that time things have changed a lot. Or we can kind of say, well, we're thinking it's this sex, even at like the NT scan nowadays which, you know, it's not even a thing back in, you know 95, when I was right growing. 

But yeah, so. So tell me then, with not many genetic counselors in the field yet You know you were at sarah Lawrence, which totally makes sense because that was, you know, one of the only programs at the time. I don't remember when Rutgers, you know, opened and the other programs at around that time. But I noticed that you know you graduated a year after you got your degree from Princeton with your bachelor's. 

0:15:22 - Virgina Corson

So it was only a year then, because nowadays well, it was curious because the program is Sarah Lawrence sort of started, really organized for women, women who were Wanting to go back and have a career Maybe they were raising a family, maybe they had worked, maybe not But the courses were really offered pretty much part-time in the early years, so you would stretch it out over two or three or maybe even four years taking the coursework. And then, once people heard about it, there were some people like myself coming right out of college that were interested in doing the program and They decided they could pack it into one year and so There was a transition period where a few classes of Again, mostly women were able to do the coursework in one year, and that was a lot of work. There were still not that many courses. There were really only about five courses, if you can imagine how many you had Kira. 

0:16:25 - Kira Dineen

That was just. There were five and one semester. 

0:16:28 - Virgina Corson

Me and I had a lot of courses but we had to do clinic rotations and we had to do some additional what was called field work. So we rotated in addition to the clinics. My rotations were in a site of genetics lab and I for a while did interviews in a miscarriage study. So there were different. I also did a month at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia, which was great. You know, we had a January off and so we could all arrange an elective. So I went to that hospital, which was good. So it was a lot, but it was physically possible to do it all in one year. I don't know how long that lasted. 

Maybe, maybe only a couple of years, i'm not sure, but it was a transition Period of time, and so that's why it was only a one-year program for me, for me. 

0:17:21 - Kira Dineen

Yeah, and it must have been like you know. I mean, it makes sense that you did cytogenetics, like I got my bachelors in cytogenetics. So you know, and now I feel like that now my program doesn't even offer a cytoconcentration, it's just molecular, which. 

I like, wow, you know times are changing just in the five years since I graduated from undergrad. But so what kind of classes were you taking? and, like, how many rotations Did you have? like, were there enough spots for you guys? I mean, it was obviously a smaller class back then it was. 

0:17:48 - Virgina Corson

It was probably smaller but it was still a pretty big class, i think. And Rotations it was great to be in the New York area because, as you know, there were rotations all over the city and then even in the suburbs. So a couple of mine were in New York. I was at Mount Sinai Hospital, i was at Albert Einstein Hospital. 

The one that I remember, you know in amazement, was that I had a rotation at Creedmoor I think it's Institute, which was a Huntington's disease program, and I don't know exactly the purpose of the interviews, but they would have a genetic counselor like myself in a room along with somebody who was at risk for Huntington's disease And just let us talk to them and interview them And I'm not sure what. They use those and I think we even taped the interviews with their permission, but we were really just left on our own to sort of Spend time with these people and get a sense for what it was like to have a family member with Huntington's disease And that that one really sticks in my mind. I had another rotation that was in prenatal, i think, at North Shore Hospital. So I think we had four clinical rotations in addition to the what they called field work at various settings. 

0:19:03 - Kira Dineen

Wow, that's a lot to pack into one year. And like and for the Honey Tenses disease clinic or whatever that was called like at that time there was no oh, do you want to test for it? Because you know I had to Google it as you were talking, but so that we discovered the gene in 93. So that was, like you know, 20 ish years after you were doing this. So it was really just talking about like letting them know What is normal. dominant hair tests, right, 50%? Yeah, okay, that kind of thing right. 

0:19:30 - Virgina Corson

No, no testing. So and again, pure counseling. Yeah, what's you know how? does it feel. You know what does it seem like to be at risk? What's your experience with having somebody with HD in the family? Often it was apparent Could have been a grandparent. 

0:19:47 - Kira Dineen

Often it was apparent. 

0:19:50 - Virgina Corson

But to go back to the idea of coursework, of course we didn't have any. We didn't have to have a class in molecular because there was no molecular. We didn't have to learn cancer genetics, for example. It just didn't, it didn't, didn't exist then. 

0:20:05 - Kira Dineen

So it was really then, just throughout your career, just you know, going to conferences and everything was just very important, especially because you couldn't just hop on the computer and listen to a Zoom call, you know. So it was like I imagine going to NSGC was like really important every year, to be like what had the new discoveries been? on top of just reading new publications throughout the year. 

0:20:27 - Virgina Corson

And it was critical in terms of continuing education for genetic counselors. It was, and back in the early days of NSGC there were also regional meetings. So you know there were six regions of the society and they would hold also independent meetings and have speakers come in. So those were critical. And also, being in a place like Johns Hopkins, you know people would at conference talk about new things and different people were reading things. There were journal clubs where you would have updates. but it was really sort of learning on your own, honestly, some of the new advances, and it was. it was great to have, eventually, genetic counselors in each of these departments. So I in prenatal I didn't have to know everything. You know there were counselors in cardiology and there were counselors in oncology And if you had a family history where that was of concern, you could then refer a family to another genetic counselor with that experience. 

0:21:27 - Kira Dineen

Yeah, so do you remember, like in the 70s, there being a cardio or genetic counselor in the cardio? 

0:21:32 - Virgina Corson

department. No, no, not in this. I was going to say, wow, that was so early, so okay, all right. You're talking about when we had testing available. Yeah, that's when these other departments typically would hire genetic counselors. Yeah. 

0:21:46 - Kira Dineen

Yeah, cause even I'm imagining in prenatal, like nowadays, like we could pick up heart defect, and then I might be talking about that with a patient, but back then I'm assuming that ultrasounds could not pick up any differences. 

0:21:57 - Virgina Corson

Pretty much not. No, It was. it was the heart was beating or not beating pretty Right. 

0:22:03 - Kira Dineen

Right, it was just kind of heartbeat checks as we do today, but like that's what it was back then. Yeah, Yeah, so I know we've talked about kind of your role at Johns Hopkins and being in prenatal but like what was a typical day, like I mean, how many patients were you seeing, how long was a session? Like you know, how do you feel? like it differs maybe from like what I do in prenatal today? 

0:22:23 - Virgina Corson

Well, you know, sessions for me typically were about half an hour in the early days, so to speak. Everybody got a family history. That was standard. Do a pedigree. 

Talk about why they came. You know what their risk was, maternal age or whatever. Talk about what testing was available, which in the early days was amniocentesis or nothing, doesn't take too long. Talk about the procedure. Talk about what the results could mean, decisions that they might face. When would the results come? 

And, of course, back in the 70s, an amniocentesis result took about four weeks. So, as you can imagine, that's a long time to be waiting. But that's where the cell culture, you know technology was. So that's where I started. But, as you well know, over time that expanded to screening options like a low AFP or a triple screen or a quad screen, and eventually, first trimester screening CVS got thrown into the mix in the late 80s for us, so that was an earlier option for a diagnostic test And then eventually, of course, self-re-dna, and so the counseling session took a lot longer. 

You'd explain all these options. If you saw somebody at 10 weeks of pregnancy, for example, you would need to talk about both diagnostic testing CVS or amniocentesis and screening whatever was available at the time. And then on top of that is what are you going to do with the sample that you get? Let's say, you do an amniocentesis or CVS, do you do a karyotype? Do you do a microarray? You know, luckily I've retired a little too soon for the whole exome sequencing and genome sequencing to be a real issue for me. But over time we had to then decide when to talk about these technologies and explain it to the patient. So a half an hour genetic counseling session is now typically an hour. Yeah. 

0:24:29 - Kira Dineen

Yeah, I'm booked for an hour. Yeah, I don't always use all of that time, depending on what the indication is and everything. 

And sometimes I'm going over if it's an abnormal reason that they're coming in. And so the karyotypes just being someone that has done I don't know I want to say hundreds of karyotypes in my time of being in the lab back a few years ago. So with that I'm trying to think of where we were in the 70s. So was it banned for banned, or was it single staining, or was it not great sub-banned? 

0:24:59 - Virgina Corson

You can count them And you can put them in groups. You can tell them apart but there was very little banding, so that of course greatly increased over the years. 

0:25:11 - Kira Dineen

Yeah, because I imagine, like I mean, i struggled enough as I was learning to be like okay, which chromosome is which, like four and fives look very similar and they're like really the same size, the banding looks very similar. So I can imagine if you didn't even have bands to be like okay, these are the groups. And you know, if you see an extra chromosome, that's, you know, looks like the shape of a popcorn almost, you're like okay, well, maybe that's down syndrome of the extra 21. 

0:25:35 - Virgina Corson

But yeah, i imagine there were some cases where they're like well, we see an extra chromosome, but we're having a hard time figuring out which one it is, Or an extra piece of chromosome too, Because it's so different, An extra piece Right, So that you know I think banding had started in the 70s but it really was at the very beginning. And the other thing that was different about a counseling session then was you didn't really have to talk too much about carrier screening. You know, if you saw a couple that was Jewish, you would offer Tay-Sach screening, That was pretty much it. An African-American couple, you might talk about sickle cell screening, but you didn't really have to offer testing for additional, like cystic fibrosis for example. 

0:26:11 - Kira Dineen

You know that was a whole, you know spinal muscle scratch, feel it was not Nothing, nothing. 

0:26:17 - Virgina Corson

And so now there are, as you know hundreds of things And, oh you know, do you do this panel or that panel, and how much do they want to know? And so that's another component of the counseling session that has certainly greatly increased in time to talk about that. 

0:26:31 - Kira Dineen

Yeah, and and at the time you were. You know, obviously you've had quite a career in genetics, but you were, you had, you know you're. What do we call that? 15 minutes of fame outside of genetics? because you were on the front cover of the Wall Street Journal article in the 70s, which is like really cool. So what was this article about? How did that impact in counseling, like I think of just you know in the 10 years I've been involved in genetics of the big times where things have hit mainstream media. But what was this all about? How did this even come to be? How did you end up on the front cover of the Wall Street Journal? 

0:27:07 - Virgina Corson

This was later. This was towards the end of the 80s actually, when this article hit, but there was. 

There was a doctor at Hopkins who had been interviewed for an article by this journalist who was just interested in genetics. And the writer wanted to do a different approach, he wanted to make it more human. And so this doctor at Hopkins said oh, i think maybe why don't you talk to Jenny? So he came to the. He came to the office a couple of times actually, he sat in on some counseling sessions, interviewed me, so had talked with patients And you know, i didn't realize it was going to turn out to be the front page of the Wall Street Journal, the dot blot on the left hand column. I didn't, i didn't realize that, but it ended up being fun because of course people saw it, you know, around the country and you know my dad was so proud and yeah, you know, and and for a while, for a while, it was included, i think, in packets of information from Sarah Lawrence when they were sending it out to a prospectus. 

0:28:03 - Kira Dineen

Of course We like our, our, you know alumni you know our featured, So it was my, it was my 15 minutes right Right. It was I, just you know it just happened to be by chance that the author was interested and the doctor set him up with me, so it was, it was fun, yeah, yeah, No, definitely, i mean that's, that's pretty remarkable, especially back in that day, i think, when everybody was more focused on print media and everything Exactly Yeah. 

Yeah, definitely And and so you know we've we've been talking about, you know just how things have changed in the field. Any other like challenges or things that was really hard in the 70s or anything that was kind of like an ethical or legal consideration at this time, like I know we've kind of talked about more the technology side and just what was available, but anything else that comes to mind. 

0:28:54 - Virgina Corson

You know, i I think the the sort of ethical and legal things happened a little bit more with the, the development of molecular testing. You know, back back in the 70s you know, and and throughout there's always been sort of the question of doing procedures for identifying the fetal sex of the baby and whether that would influence people's decisions about continuing your pregnancy, so that I think prenatal centers have struggled with since the beginning. But otherwise it was more a time of trying to establish one's own job, role and responsibility and a little bit of turf wars with with the physicians and and just trying to establish the National Society of Genetic Counselors. That happened at the end of the 70s And many physicians were concerned about whether genetic counselors could do counseling independently without a doctor in the room. 

That at the time was, you know, sort of a big debate and topic of discussion. But I don't remember really particular legal problems back in those days. 

0:30:00 - Kira Dineen

Yeah, right there, just wasn't as much right to consider at that time. 

But you know we talked about, you know, in episodes what did I mention 234 35 about the, you know, forming nsgc and abgc and also just like that turmoil time when geneticists and other physicians and everything were like you know, oh, like genetic counselors, like you know They can't do like what we do, and kind of breaking away from them because I imagine you were part of the crew that was taking the same exam as geneticists, correct? so like you had to know as much as the geneticists, which like I can't imagine passing that nowadays. But I mean, so you know it was. It was after that where you guys then kind of you got grandfathered in But people were taking separate exam, that it wasn't. 

0:30:50 - Virgina Corson

So we took the same General core as the, as the MD, geneticists, and then we would take a genetic counseling and they would take a medical. So we We each took then separate okay. 

Okay, so it was a little bit separate, took the same core and we did that really for about 10 years or so, and That was when the American Board of Medical Specialties said we will Allow admission of the American Board of Medical Genetics, but you can't bring the genetic counselors with you. That was what happened and it was. It was really honestly devastating To to be told that we would no longer be sort of part of that community. It was. It was a really difficult time but but honestly, in the long run it forced, so to speak, the genetic counselors to establish a new organization, to Decide how they wanted to you know Prudential genetic counselors to be responsible for their exams and then to go on and accredit the graduate programs. So, although a time of strife, it ended up probably To the advantage of the genetic counselors, because we, we were forced to go out on our own, so to speak, and it's and it's worked well. Yeah, it's what we sure. 

0:32:08 - Kira Dineen

Yeah, it was, it was growing pains, but yeah, it ended up being a good thing in the long run. But, wow, i mean, i just have to say, jenny, your, your memory is impeccable, like the fact that you can recall all these things you're talking about. It is if it was like a couple years ago. Yeah, this is what we did. 

0:32:23 - Virgina Corson

I'm like wow, you know, i did a little bit of homework. I have to say I did back Well, a little bit of dates and things. 

0:32:31 - Kira Dineen

Sure, but I mean still, the way you know, i asked you some questions off the cuff that was not in our outline and everything. But no, i mean this has just been incredible, just to to see how the field was, compare it to today, and I think it gives people an appreciation for just how far the field has come in the last 50 years. I know the class before me was the 50th class from Sarah Lawrence, so you know we're at probably 53, 54 by now. 

You know years of you know I kind of consider when Sarah Lawrence was starting that's, that's the birth of genetic counseling. But I mean, jenny, thank you so much. I mean I feel like you were just the perfect person. Caroline Lieber is the one that kind of connected us and you know she was spot-on, was saying Jenny is the person so well it's been fun to chat for sure. 

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