ESHG-EDUCATION COMMITTEE
Domenico Coviello (Chair, Milan, Italy)
Martina Cornel (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
Celia DeLozier (USA/Switzerland)
Peter Farndon (Birmingham, UK)
Peter Goetz (Czech Republic)
Shirley Hodgson (London, U.K.)
Alastair Kent (Patients Organizations, GIG and EAGS)
Gyorgy Kosztolanyi (Pécs, Hungary)
Jorge Sequeiros (Porto, Portugal)
Heather Skirton (Plymouth, UK)

Additional collaborating members:
Jacques Beckman (Lausanne, Switzerland)
Agnes Bloch-Zupan (Strasbourg, France)
Francoise Clerget-Darpoux, (Villejuif, France)
Rodney Harris (Manchester, U.K.)
Vaidutis Kucinskas (Lithuania)
Tayfun Özcelik (Ankara, Turkey)
Marcus Pembrey, (Bristol, UK)
Fred Petrij (Rotterdam, The Netherlands)
Maria Soller (Lund, Sweden)

Dear Colleagues,

I would like to thank all of you for the results achieved this year! The EuroGentest project has been fundamental in supporting our committee, giving us the opportunity to meet regularly and to work together at our annual workshops (Leuven, Dec 05; Porto, Sep. 06), but without your expertise and enthusiasm it would not be possible to write the draft document on “Core Competences in Genetics for Health Professionals in Europe”. Moreover I want to thank our past president John Burn and the executive board of ESHG, for the great support given to our committee and to the field of education in general. I believe that the proposal of having three sub-committees and several working groups will also improve the quality of our work and will increase the activity within our society.

Attached you will find:
- The minutes of our last meeting in Nice, please check if everything is correctly reported and if anything is missing!
- The invitation to the 3rd Eurogentest Unit 6 workshop ‘Building Towards Professional Competence and Patient Confidence’, that will be held on the 27-28 October, 2007, in Milan, Italy.

I encourage all members and collaborating members to continue to be very active sending me feedback on the minutes of our last meeting, on the draft document on Core Competences, and in sending me a message a.s.a.p. to confirm the participation the Milan workshop.

My best regards,

Domenico Coviello

Minutes of the Meeting on 17/06/07 – Nice, FR

Present: Jacques Beckman, Agnes Block, Francoise Clerget-Darpoux, Martina Cornel, Domenico Coviello, Celia DeLozier, Shirley Hodgson, Ulf Kristoffersson, Vaidutis Kucinskas, Melissa Martin, Sylvia Metcalfe, Christine Patch, Marcus Pembrey, Maria Soller, Tayfun Özcelik.

Apologies: Peter Farndon, Peter Goetz, Rodney Harris, Alastair Kent, Gyorgy Kosztolanyi, Fred Petrij, Jorge Sequeiros, Heather Skirton.

POINT OF DISCUSSION AS PROPOSED IN THE AGENDA:

1) Minutes of previous meeting -- approved.

2) Nomination of members and chairman of Education Committee:

- Domenico Coviello, Celia DeLozier, Shirley Hodgson and George Kosztolany declared that they would like to continue to serve for the second (and last) term of three years on the committee. --- Approved ---
- Domenico Coviello declared himself to be available to chair the Committee for the second (and last) term of three years if all members agreed. --- Approved ---

In 2008 the following members will finish their first term: Alastair Kent, Peter Farndom, Jorge Sequerios and Heather Skirton.

In 2009 the following members will finish their first term: Martina Cornel and Peter Goetz.

- Introductions of new collaborating members: Jacques Beckman, Francoise Clerget-Darpoux, Marcus Pembrey are welcome as new collaborating members of the Committee. --- Approved ---

3) Report of liaison person with other international societies: ASHG, ISONG, IGEN

- ASHG: Celia gave an update of the our liaison with the American Society Education Committee liaison. They would like the European Society to be part of “DNA Day”. The committee has no particular objection, but we need to look at the pragmatic points of promoting something through the European Society. Celia is to look into this and make suggestions to the Board via Domenico. Celia said she would be willing to continue her liaison work with ASHG.

- ISONG: Christine Patch and Domenico reported on recent meeting of International Society of Nurse in Genetics (ISONG), which was held in Bristol. Eurogenetest and the ESHG Education Committee presented at that meeting. The President of ISONG expressed a willingness to liaise with ESHG more frequently. They have received the Eurogenetest newsletter and will distribute it to their members. ISONG members were pleased to learn that a network of nurses/counselors will be established in Europe.

- IGEN: Sylvia Metcalfe (Chair of the Education Committee of Australiasian Society) reported about the new International Genetic Education Network (IGEN) started last year at the International Congress of Human Genetics in Brisbane, Australia. IGEN will work within the International Federation of Human Genetic Society (IFHGS) and it is an open network to facilitate the interaction of Education Committees of existing Human Genetics Societies, representative of institutions or other networks dedicated to education and even individual professionals that want to contribute to the field of genetic education. A dedicate page will be set up on the web page of IFHGS (http://www.ifhgs.org).

4) Report and discussion on Core Competences document:

- Domenico presented the “Core Competences in Genetics for Health Professionals in Europe” document draft (CC) that is on the ESHG website, including a letter asking members to review it.

- Suggestions from the group:
- use information from GeneEd conferences (Ulf Kristoffersson);
- dissemination could take place via attendance at national society meetings to present CC proposals
- there is a need to put links to these documents on both the Website and the Society Newsletter

- Other comments:
- CC document is too long for diffusion (Ulf Kristoffersson);
- the Committee could call this the “best practice” document and use mainly bullet points (executive summary needed) which can be “sold” to the public.
- Marcus Pembrey suggests having the full document available but a summary pulled out for each discipline.
- Jacques Beckman points out that we really need to define target audience better – it is intended for three different groups. We need the bullet points for each type of health professional, but also need a summary document for “politicians”.

- Discussion of how CC of G.Ps could be used to generate suggestions for medical school programs in Genetics. Genetics in medical school is often lacunary, in spite of our discipline’s growing importance in all areas of medicine.

RECOMMENDATION: Could add something to the CC document about medical school curricula- what should be acquired when one graduates from medical school. There is an Australian document on G.Ps (see Royal Australian College of General Practicioners on-line document)

5) New proposals:

Domenico, with other ESHG board members (Beckman, Clerget-Darpoux, and Kucinskas) presented the board decision on creating 3 sub committees within the education committee. The specific aim of these sub-committees is to deal with the update of the education programs in each profession, to allow the recognition of the national qualifications at European levels for each category of professionals:
- Sub Committees:
a) Clinical genetics (Chair Ulf Kristoffersson)
b) Laboratory genetics (Chair to be nominated)
c) Nurse and counsellors (Chair Heather Skirton and Christine Patch)

Members of the board are warmly encouraged to help in one of these subcommittees.
Chairs of the sub-committees will liaise with the chair of Education Committee to organize future work. --- Approved ---

a) There is already activity in the area of Clinical Genetics and Ulf Kristoffersson reported us about his involvement with the recognition of Clinical/Medical Genetics as specialty in Europe.
Kristofferson has interacted since quite a few years with “Union Européenne des Médécins Spécialistes” (UEMS) or in English European Union of Medical Specialists (http://www.uems.net/).
Quality assurance of Continuing Medical Education (CME) in the European countries is the responsibility of the National Authorities. European consensus on quality assurance requirements is embodied in the UEMS CME Charter with its Annexes and the guidelines implicit in the data to be submitted. The quality and effectiveness of the accreditation process and of the awarding of international CME credits will be monitored at the European level by the UEMS European Accreditation Council for CME (EACCME). The UEMS - EACCME can delegate this responsibility to the UEMS Specialist Section concerned.
There was no Specialist Section of Clinical Genetics and what was achieved during these years is to have a joint multidisciplinary committee (JMC), for the specific purposes to establish the Specialist Section of Clinical Genetics. This JMC is chaired by Ulf Kristoffersson and Dian Donnai.
John Burn and Alessandra Reineri expressed the interest to work in the Clinical genetics subcommittee and other members are welcome to joint by to contacting Ulf Kristoffersson.

b) Concerning the laboratory scientists sub-committee, we need to specify that a lot is done concerning the quality control and the development of new technology by the EUROGENTEST project. This is not included in the work of the sub-committee. The work that needs to be done is understand if the professional qualification you need to work in a genetic laboratory (diagnostic level) is equivalent in the different member states or not. We also need to establish if have an appropriate number of professionals or if we need to set up more courses to cover the needs of the market. The education process and the recognition of the qualification in Europe are the main concerns.

c) Christine Patch (and on behalf of Heather Skirton) pointed out that there is not co-ordinated organisation to offer support to genetic nurses and counsellors in Europe. While non-medical genetic counsellors and genetic nurses have been working for some time in some countries in Europe, apart from in the UK, the Netherlands, and Belgium numbers of practitioners tend to be very small in each country. With the developments in genetics and genomics, it is likely that numbers will rise, especially in view of the recommendations of the EuroGentest project for specialist genetic counselling for specific types of genetic testing. The experience from contact with practitioners at the annual course “Genetic Counselling in Practice” offered by the European Genetics Foundation is that non-medical practitioners feel a need for particular support from colleagues because of the lack of peers and infrastructure for their specialist practice in their own countries. An informal list of these professionals exist in some countries. This sub-committee will work to put in contact official organizations in contact with this new group of professionals and form a coherent, supportive network for the non-medical counselors and nurses.

From discussion at the board meeting with other members Domenico is proposing also to establish three working groups:
- Working groups:
a) e-learning (coordinator Francoise Clerget-Darpoux)
b) Public Health Genomics/Community Genetics (coordinator Martina Cornel)
c) ESHG courses (endorsements, database, new ones) (coordinator Domenico and Jerome del Picchia)

Any member willing to joint please contact the coordinators.

a) Francoise Clerget-Darpoux explained that e-learning activity could be part of the EUROGENE project, a grant application sent out last year within FP6 of European Commission. The project has been positively gone through the financial negotiations phase but the final approval has not arrived jet. The ESHG Education Committee is a partner in this project and will keep all members informed as soon it begins. Expertise in the field will be needed.

b) Francoise told us that population genetics is a growing part of our discipline, she thanks ESHG for the support of fellowships for the EGF course on Statistical Genetic Analysis of Complex Phenotypes, although there is no specific working group on this topic. Domenico clarified what the ESHG Board considers all sub-committees involved with genetics in health care and the application of genetics in practice through genetic services. Dr. Beckman expanded on this – there is a real day-to-day problem with the definition of who can work in clinical practice. Martina will collect questions on this topics and will suggest action to take.

c) The ESHG board is willing organize new courses in Europe. The Education Committee will receive requests and will evaluate topics and venues. Jerome del Picchia will help in evaluate the budget and in making plan to support or fully organize the courses.

6) Planning future work:

- How to proceed with Core Competence document?
Unit 6 of Eurogenetest is organizing next workshop in Milan October 27-28, 2007. As usual the Education Committee is invited to take part (see attached program). The document will be updated with suggestions received at Nice meeting and by e-mails.

- Joint initiative between NHS-NGEDC in UK and the ESHG.
Domenico has reported on his visit to the NHS National Genetics Education and Development Centre in Birmingham (UK) (www.geneticseducation.nhs.uk) (see also newsletter 15) and Melissa Martin explained in more details the activity of the Centre directed by Peter Farndon. Possible collaborations on the web site and other activities were raised, but this point was not discussed properly and no decisions were made.

7) Planning future meetings:

- AMEE meeting, Trondheim, Norway, 25-29 August 2007.
Domenico has been invited to AMEE meeting in Norway, he will present the CC document, data from Eurogenetest and Education Committee, and get some feedback on e-learning initiatives.

- Unit 6 Eurogentest workshop, Milan 27-28 October 2007.

- Next ESHG Meeting in Barcellona 2008: organize a joint meeting with IGEN?

- IGEN in Canada. In 2011 there will be International Congress of Human Genetics meeting, in Canada. It would be good to have a presence there.
Ulf K. points out that Eurogenetest money will run out in 2010 and that it is important to think of how to continue this work.

Archives:
Letter 13 - March 21 2008
Letter 12 - August 17, 2007
Letter 11 - May 10, 2007
Letter 10 - October 3, 2006
Letter 9 - July 3, 2006
Letter 8 - April 21, 2006