Guest: Brianne Kirkpatrick Williams, Founder of Watershed DNA, Genetic Counselor
Chapters:
00:00 Brianne hits a wave: the explosion of genetic genealogy
06:15: Advice for genetic counselors in an age when DNA secrets don’t stay hidden
11:30 Counseling for the “DNA surprise”
13:40 Should we offer more genetic testing to adoptees? Brianne says yes
16:29 The challenges of entrepreneurship
19:21 Earned media? Brianne says the media came to her. “Just say yes.”
21:07 The complicated world of private practice genetic counseling: how state licensure affects her business.
If you survey genetic counselors about direct-to-consumer genetic testing (and we did!) you will find that most of them think that DTC customers should receive genetic counseling. At the same time, most of them say that they wouldn’t feel comfortable doing the counseling… In 2016, Brianne Kirkpatrick Williams set up Watershed DNA for just this purpose. In this interview, Brianne discusses the challenges and satisfactions of entrepreneurship and being a pioneer in the DTC genetic testing era.
