Current and future applications of genetics in primary care medicine.

Abstract

Individualized medical treatment and prevention based on one's genetic makeup are promises likely to be fulfilled over decades. Already family history is taking a more prominent role in preventive care. Primary care clinicians and geneticists will increasingly collaborate to diagnose and manage genetic conditions: both single-gene disorders and multifactorial diseases such as infections,cancers, cardiovascular disease and mental illness. This will require society, with primary care clinicians in the forefront, to implement means for efficient family history-taking; maintaining private, personally accessible genetic health records; safeguarding people from genetic discrimination; distributing access to scarce genetic specialists and expensive technologies; rectifying lay misconceptions about inheritance; managing emotional responses and family dynamics related to genetic diagnosis; and motivating people at increased familial risk to take preventive action.