THE EMERGING ROLE OF THE PHYSICIAN IN GENETIC-COUNSELING AND TESTING FOR HERITABLE BREAST, OVARIAN AND COLON-CANCER

As genetic testing for susceptibility to breast, ovarian and colon can cer becomes more readily available, physicians are faced with an incre asing demand for information about inherited cancer risk. Because adva nces in treatment have not kept pace with advances in predictive testi ng, the provision of genetic counselling and testing marks a departure from the traditional role of the physician. A systematic framework is needed within which the physician's emerging role in predictive testi ng for heritable cancer can be delineated. The development of such a f ramework will require collaboration among professionals in a range of scientific disciplines, as well as the suspension of traditional assum ptions about the physician's role.