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Carrier Screening for Women Undergoing Elective Oocyte Cryopreservation (EOC): A Look at Practice Among Reproductive Endocrinologists at an Academic Fertility Clinic
Get PDFElective oocyte cryopreservation (EOC) is a process involving freezing and banking oocytes with the intention to be used in the future for pregnancy. Cryopreserving oocytes allows women to enhance their reproductive autonomy by reducing the effects of age-relatedfertility decline. Similarly, expanded carrier screening (ECS) completed prior to conception allows women to consider their full range of reproductive options including in-vitro fertilization (IVF) with preimplantation genetic testing (PGT), use of donor gametes, and prenatal testing and diagnosis. In this retrospective chart review, we examine carrier screening practices for 106 EOC patients, and an age-matched control group of 106 IVF patients who presented to an academic fertility clinic in 2019. Between the two patient groups, more IVF patients underwent expanded carrier screening (p=0.008) compared to the EOC group (94.3% versus 62.3%). We also examined the breakdown of expanded carrier screening between patient groups per each of the nine physicians working in the clinic. Two physicians were more likely to order ECS for their IVF patients than their EOC patients (p=.004 and p\u3c.001), while two other physicians were less likely to order ECS for their EOC patients than their colleagues (p\u3c.001 and p=.008). A possible explanation for the variations in ECS offerings is the difference of opinion surrounding clinical utility for EOC and IVF patients. Providers should carefully consider the benefits and limitations when offering ECS to their fertility patients, and further study and guidance from professional medical organizations may help to standardize practice across the field
Investigating the Experience of Underrepresented Groups Applying to Genetic Counseling Training Programs
Get PDFThe genetic counseling profession admitted to its lack of diversification more than 3 decades ago. However, even with the combined efforts of the profession’s top organizations, the National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC), the Association of Genetic Counseling Program Directors (AGCPD), and their members, the status of more than 90% homogenous majority workforce has persisted. It is judicious for the genetic counseling profession to rectify the inequity and unfairness aimed at discounted underrepresented groups within its own profession. Since the NSGC prioritized diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) issues in 2019, multiple studies have focused on revealing the barriers interfering with achieving diversity in the genetic counseling profession. Notably missing from this research are the voices of the applicants from underrepresented groups (URGs). We aimed to survey those applicants to identify their experienced barriers during the application process and their proposed prospects for improving their representation. We found that most respondents reported that costs incurred and tuition (93.2%), finding shadowing and internship opportunities (59.3%), and the Graduate Record Examination (GRE; 55.9%) as major barriers. They also identified obstacles such as lack of access to networking and a misconception on the part of the training programs regarding URGs’ non-competitiveness in science. We devised a set of recommendations based on the respondents’ suggestions and our research and analysis that included offering more financial support, reducing GRE restrictions, decreasing emphasis on shadowing, establishing a partnership with the Minority Genetic Professionals Network (MGPN), integrating program faculty and supervisors in DEI-certified training, and implementing standardized DEI courses in all training programs
On the Development of Psychosocial Skills in Genetic Counseling Programs: Perspectives from Recent Graduates
No full textABSTRACT
The Accreditation Council for Genetic Counseling (ACGC) has listed psychosocial skills as one of the domains of Practice Based Competencies (PBC) which are expected competencies for an entry-level genetic counselor. To gain understanding of how students are trained in psychosocial skills and determine practitioner attitudes on these skills, 25 genetic counselors in their first one to two years of practice were interviewed remotely. A total of 19 unique training programs and all major subspecialties were represented in the sample. Interviews were transcribed and coded for major themes relating to attitudes, training techniques, and opinions on effectiveness of training. These data suggest that experiential training is highly effective, the majority of genetic counselors think psychosocial skills are very important, and that the supervisor-supervisee relationship highly influences the development of psychosocial skills
My Embodied Bicultural Experience and Dance/Movement Therapy
Get PDFCulture is in the everyday. It is embodied in the way people walk, sit, stand, eat, wash, breathe, and otherwise comport their bodies as they go through daily life (Cohen & Leung, 2009). Culture is multifaceted and embedded and embodied within identity. Ignoring emotions and body signals is detrimental to mental and physical health. It is possible for an individual to have a sense of belonging in two cultures without compromising their sense of cultural identity (Kim, 2002). Biculturalism allows culture to be a choice rather than something that requires purging old practices and beliefs from the self for individuals to survive (Kim, 2002).
Verheggen and Voestermans (2013) offered that integration of another’s culture is achieved by embodied engagement rather than by mere instruction. However, there are limitations that need to be addressed such as inherent biases. Not attending to subconscious and inherent biases, endangers the ability to have empathy, and to be in authentic relationship with others, and has implications for the dance/movement therapist’s multicultural competency in dance/movement therapy as well.
This thesis explores the embodied experience of being bi-cultural and how that experience could inform the practice of DMT to better meet the possible needs of bi-cultural clients
Addressing White Body Supremacy in the Black Body: An Embodied Approach
Get PDFOppression, discrimination, and racism are deeply rooted within our country’s institution and are the framework for the ideology, political, social, and economic values that are still upheld today. The enforcement of White body supremacy has caused trauma related mental and bodily distress to develop into anxiety, depression, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), or Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome (PTSS), and other mental conditions manifested in the body. As oppression is not officially acknowledged as trauma, it significantly complicates the process of healing for Black people. Degruy (2005) calls Black people to action to heal the traumas that have been passed down intergenerationally and have impacted them on multiple levels. I offer an approach to healing using dance/movement. This approach is derived from my ancestors, for dance served an essential role in life, addressing psychological distress, coping through trauma, ceremonies, spiritual practices, and a range of physical ailments. Dance/movement therapy serves identical purposes and created a mode of healing for the West. Influenced and dominated by a predominantly White female group, dance/movement therapy has been centralized in White body supremacy and impacts current dance/movement therapists. Currently, the field is incorporating various multi-cultural dance perspectives, but there continues to be a need for change. Through dance/movement therapists doing the inner work necessary to implement social justice and dismantle White body supremacy, change is possible
The Good, the Bad, and the Bloody: Images of Menstruation in Television and in Menstrual Activism
Get PDFMy thesis investigates the origins and tactics of the menstrual health movement; examines contemporary representations of menarche (the onset of menstruation) in TV programs; and postulates how these two streams of discourse could and should form a more symbiotic relationship. My first chapter defines menstrual activism, which seeks to destigmatize menstruation, using two different frameworks. Menstrual humor is frequently utilized across efforts of destigmatizing menstruation. I argue that menstrual humor can advance the menstrual activism movement depending on the punchline.
Chapter Two assesses the menstrual status quo according to television. I analyze thirteen media portrayals of menarche that aired from 2001-2019. My research is focused on menarche narratives because first periods are more prominently featured than any other period, and I narrow my analysis to television because it is arguably the most pervasive form of popular culture. Menstrual humor is prevalent across these representations. I also discovered that there are more instances of menstrual activism in episodes written by women compared to those written by men.
My conclusion urges menstrual activists to engage in popular culture discourses. I highlight the urgency of this matter by relating the implications and consequences of the stigmatized status of menstruation. I do not pretend that empathetic portrayals of periods on TV will totally upend taboos; after all, as famously theorized by cultural theorist Stuart Hall, people engage with the media in uncontrollable ways. But we have the opportunity to shape the intended message of these narratives. This can move the needle towards normalizing menstruation
They Would Do As They Pleased, As They Had the Power : Gender Violence and the American Settler-Colonial Project, 1830-1890
Get PDFThis thesis investigates the role of gender violence and sexual terror in westward settler expansion of the United States in the nineteenth century. I posit that gender violence was not simply a symptom of war and colonization, but an integral piece of the American colonization strategy. Using studies of three locations during three different periods, I have found that the local, territorial, state, and federal governments all actively deployed sexual assault and other forms of gendered terror as methods of removing Indigenous peoples to reservations and rancherías, opening their lands to settlement and resource exploitation for the purpose of acquiring wealth and power for both individuals and the state itself. Through the lens of critical Indigenous feminist studies and utilizing the theories of Indigenous woman scholars, I have made connections between historical violence and the current crisis of violence against Indigenous women, girls, queer, trans, and two-spirit people, and, in particular, their abduction and murder, colloquially known as MMIWGQ2ST. While my research findings are oftentimes quite dark, I highlight the survival and resistance (survivance) of Indigenous women and girls and the hope on the horizon for decolonization, justice, and healing
