Current genetic counseling students will graduate into a workforce involving more opportunities, diversity, and uncertainty than any previous generation. Preparing the future genetic counseling workforce is a dynamic challenge, both for the profession and for educators. The dominance of the medical model in the state funded Australian healthcare system creates a power imbalance between doctors and other health professionals. As a result, professional regulation to protect the public from harm in line with the United States, the UK, and Canada only became mandatory in 2019. Professional regulation has the additional benefit of enhancing professional standing and autonomy, enabling genetic counselors to help shape the future of genetic health care in Australia and New Zealand. Within this rapidly evolving environment, we are establishing a new Masters’ program and building a discipline of genetic counseling, working alongside other allied health professionals. Our program involves synchronous and asynchronous learning, greater accessibility, flexibility and, as we have learned in 2020, reduction in disruption during a global pandemic. In this program, we foreground the inherent knowledge, skills, and values of genetic counseling, shifting the focus from provision of genetic and genomic tests, to educating competent, person‐centered, research enabled and culturally safe genetic counselors. As educators, we have a responsibility to prepare students to embrace the uncertainties, challenges, and potential of the genomic era, to seize the many possibilities that lie ahead, and to expand their thinking and vision. We ask our students to be courageous, to step into a deep exploration of their own identity, beliefs, understanding, and experiences of oppression, power, and privilege. We are pushing boundaries, and challenging ourselves and our students to remain always open to possibilities. Equipping students with open eyes and listening ears may be the single most important thing we can do to prepare the genetic counseling workforce of the future to provide the best possible care.

中文翻译：

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为澳大利亚的未来准备遗传咨询劳动力

当前的遗传咨询专业学生将毕业后进入一个比前几代人拥有更多机会、多样性和不确定性的劳动力队伍。准备未来的遗传咨询工作人员是一个动态的挑战，无论是对专业人士还是教育工作者。在国家资助的澳大利亚医疗保健系统中，医疗模式的主导地位造成了医生和其他医疗专业人员之间的权力失衡。因此，与美国、英国和加拿大一样保护公众免受伤害的专业监管直到 2019 年才成为强制性规定。专业监管还有一个额外的好处，即提高专业地位和自主权，使遗传咨询师能够帮助塑造澳大利亚和新西兰基因医疗保健的未来。在这个快速发展的环境中，我们正在建立一个新的硕士课程并建立一门遗传咨询学科，与其他专职卫生专业人员一起工作。我们的计划涉及同步和异步学习、更大的可访问性和灵活性，正如我们在 2020 年了解到的那样，在全球大流行期间减少中断。在这个项目中，我们突出遗传咨询的内在知识、技能和价值观，将重点从提供遗传和基因组测试转移到教育有能力、以人为本、研究支持和文化安全的遗传咨询师。作为教育工作者，我们有责任让学生准备好迎接基因组时代的不确定性、挑战和潜力，抓住未来的众多可能性，并拓展他们的思维和视野。我们要求我们的学生勇敢，深入探索他们自己的身份、信仰、理解以及压迫、权力和特权的经历。我们正在突破界限，挑战自己和我们的学生，以始终保持对可能性的开放。让学生睁大眼睛和倾听耳朵可能是我们可以做的最重要的事情，以准备未来的遗传咨询工作人员提供最好的护理。