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If you would like to learn more about my personal experience with doctors, OBGYNs, surgeons, my BRCA+ family members and their Myriad BRACAnalysis test results, clinical research studies I participated in, my own genetic counselor, my own experience with BRCA testing, my test results, what being BRCA+ is and what it means, and my short- and long-term reactions to my BRCA1 positivity, then you might be interested in viewing a talk I gave last month to the Genetics class of the Emory University School of Medicine's Class of 2013.
I presented a talk to the first year students for Genetics in Cancer Day on November 17, 2009. I was invited by the course coordinator, Dr. Kate Garber, and by my genetic counselor, Christine Stanislaw, MS. They wanted me to talk to the genetics class about my family's history of hereditary breast and ovarian cancers (HBOC), my experience with BRCA genetic testing, my test results, my short- and long-term reactions to the options afforded me by the test, and my subsequent prophylactic mastectomies. The lecture is followed by a Q&A session with me and Christine. Run time is 58 minutes.
For those who don't have an hour to spare, I've also posted an abbreviated version of the talk that includes only the slideshow itself with voiceover. It was recorded on a later date and is therefore slightly different than my lecture, and does not include the Q&A. On the upside, though, you can actually read everything on the slides.
Within the month, I also plan to upload a version of the full lecture that was recorded by the University itself, rather than just by us with our own camera. Hopefully the quality of the soon-to-be-uploaded Emory recording will be better than what is now available to you, although the current video isn't too bad.
Please bear with the first 5 minutes of the talk. It gets better after that, I promise.
To view either the 1 hour lecture with Q&A or the 30 minute slideshow only, point your browser to:
If you have any questions or comments about any of the content, please feel free to either leave a comment on Vimeo, on this blog post page here, or email me. Thanks and I hope you enjoy it.
