Genetic Inheritance for the Pregnancy Pathway: A Practical Guide for Clinicians (FutureLearn)

On this two-week course, you’ll learn about the different types of genetic inheritance, delving deeper into Mendelian inheritance and its potential deviations. There will be a focus on genomics in the pregnancy pathway, providing a practical guide for midwives and other practitioners delivering maternity care.

Develop practical skills for taking patient history and drawing pedigrees

An important part of recognising inherited disorders is in taking family histories and drawing family trees. You’ll learn key principles for taking family and patient history, then use those skills to gain practical experience in drawing pedigrees.

Recognise genomic conditions in prenatal and antenatal development

Using case examples, you’ll look at how you can improve care pathways and referrals, specifically throughout pregnancy care. You’ll also have the opportunity to discuss current ethical issues in genetic testing, such as the ethical implications of offering genetic testing, and how genetic testing could be mainstreamed into maternity services.

Learn from experts in the field of genomics

With clinicians at the forefront of providing clinical genomic services, The South East Genomic Medicines Service Alliance (GMSA) has specialist expertise and understanding in genomics, in particular workforce training and education.

What topics will you cover?

- The discovery of inheritance patterns

- Types of autosomal inheritance - including case examples relevant to practice

- Deviations from inheritance - including examples relevant to practice

- Principles and practical guide to taking a family and patient history

- The pedigree

- How clinician knowledge can improve care pathways

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

- Describe dominant, recessive, x-linked and complex inheritance

- Identify examples of genomic conditions, including the ones they are most likely to encounter in antenatal care

- Demonstrate the ability to draw a pedigree

- Apply the principles of pedigree drawing to recognise modes of inheritance

- Identify deviations from mendelian inheritance

- Evaluate further individual learning needs to provide high quality care