Brandeis University Genetic Counseling Program

Hello friends!

Wishing everyone a fun and productive trip to the NSGC Annual Conference. There is no planned reunion but I know there are many alumni attending. So I hope you have the chance to get together informally!

Maybe next year when the meeting is on the east coast!

Congrats to Jessica Douglas, Class of 2004, for being named the Senior Director of Genetic Counseling at Boston Children’s Hospital. This is a newly created position in which Jess will oversee the genetic counselors across all Divisions and Departments.

I can only imagine the great things Jess will do to advance genetic counseling at Children’s!!

At the ACMG meeting in Toronto. I am reminded here, that the legacy of the Brandeis GC Program continues to live on and shape the profession.

I want to highlight a few tidbits regarding our Brandeis family:

I have counted about 25 alums here, many of whom I have spoken to and gotten updates from. This group includes representatives from almost half of our graduating classes!

There are THREE individuals from the inaugural class of the Brandeis GC Program in attendance: Beth (Rosen) Sheidley, Beth Berlin and Michele (Murray) Basiliere.

Melissa (Allard) Kelly, Class of 2008, received the 2024 Carolyn Mills Lovell Genetic Counseling Award. Congrats!!!

Liz Sheehan, Class of 2018, gave a presentation as part of an important session, “After Dobbs: Impact of Abortion Laws on Genetics and Genomics Training & Practice”

Kristen (Maliszewski) Meijs, Class of 2010, is here as the Director of Marketing for Prevention Genetics.

A number of Brandeis graduates are presenting posters during the meeting.

Our program continues to make its mark!!

Hello all!

I have managed to get our page republished!! For now at least.

I hope everyone is enjoying NSGC who is there. Judy Jackson and Nikkola Carmichael are trying to gather Brandeis alumni to go to Myriad party Friday night for an informal reunion. Reach out to either one of them!

Much gratitude to the fieldwork sites that hosted members of the Class of 2023 this past year:

PRENATAL
South Shore Hospital - 5
Tufts Medical Center - 2
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center - 1
Maine Medical Center - 1
Queen Charlotte Hospital - 1

PEDIATRICS
Boston Children's Hospital-PD - 4
Rhode Island Hospital-PD - 4
UMass Medical Center - 1
Maine Medical Center - 1

CANCER
Dana Farber Cancer Institute - 2
Mt. Auburn Hospital - 3
Maine Medical Center - 2
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center - 1
Women and Infants Hospital - 1
Baptist Health of South Florida - 1

LAB
Quest - 5
Integrated Genetics - 2
GeneDx - 2
Natera - 1

FLEX
Boston Children's Neuro - 2
Boston Children's Cardio - 1
Boston Children's MFCC - 1
Dana Farber Pedi-Onc - 1
Dana Farber Adult Onc - 1
Maine Medical Center Cancer - 1
Mass Eye and Ear - 1
FORCE - 1
Ohio State Medical Center -Adult Gen/Gyn-Onc - 1

Thank you for your amazing dedication, especially to those sites who took more students than usual and those who do not typically host students from Brandeis. Despite the craziness of the year, we were thankful to be able to offer our students so many incredible rotations!

It has been a pleasure working with all of you.

The Leadership Team wants to extend our sincere appreciation to the Course Instructors who taught our students this past year:

Sharyn Lincoln
Lisa Demers
Jennifer Tansey
Alice Noble

Thanks to all of you for your dedication to our students during this challenging time. They learned so much from each of you!

Although there were times when the faculty felt the Class of 2023 could have finished out their training on their own, we were so proud to guide them to the finish line and be there to celebrate the achievements of such an incredible class to close out the Program.

As Program Director I want to give a few shout outs to those who were instrumental over the past year. To:

Cassie Buck, the Interim (and final) Assistant Director. Thank you for helping steer the ship with me until the end, for being there as a colleague and friend to laugh with, roll our eyes together and shed a few tears (well me at least).

Judy Jackson. Instructor and Clinical Supervisor. Thank you for your love of the Brandeis GC program, never-ending commitment to our students having taken literally half this class for prenatal rotations and for always making me laugh.

Roberta Brock, our Program Coordinator. Thank you for your constant support and encouragement, willingness to do anything to help out and for decorating my desk (with Victoria Morris ‘22) to celebrate getting to the finish line.

Judith Tsipis, the Program’s Founding Director. Thank you for taking a chance on me 15 years ago and trusting me with your “crazy dream”, being such a dear friend since we began our work together and your kindness and understanding during the past few years.

Beth Sheidley. From graduate in the inaugural class to colleague to lifelong friend. Thank you for your ongoing support of the Program and our students, for never being more than a text or phone call away when I needed to laugh, kvetch or cry and for being an incredible friend both professionally and personally.

I could not have done it without each and every one of you!

Gretchen

Today we celebrated the graduation of the Brandeis GC Program’s 30th class. I can’t imagine a better group to have closed out the Program’s tenure.

Congratulations:
Delany
Kylie
Rebecca
Silvana
Ellie
Kiera
Kaleigh
Lucian
Jes
Lily

We are so incredibly proud to call you our genetic counseling colleagues.