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Effects of Second Language Usage on Genetic Counseling Training and Supervision
Author(s) -
Vanneste Rachel,
Chiu Sui Mei,
Russell Laura,
Fitzpatrick Jennifer
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
journal of genetic counseling
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.867
H-Index - 52
eISSN - 1573-3599
pISSN - 1059-7700
DOI - 10.1007/s10897-012-9509-7
Subject(s) - genetic counseling , medical education , vocabulary , session (web analytics) , psychosocial , exploratory research , relevance (law) , psychology , focus group , medicine , applied psychology , computer science , philosophy , linguistics , genetics , psychiatry , sociology , world wide web , anthropology , political science , law , biology , marketing , business
We conducted an exploratory study of the experiences of genetic counselors who have either trained or supervised in a second language to assess the relevance of this issue to genetic counseling training and supervision. Two hundred‐thirty NSGC members, CAGC members and genetic counseling students completed the online questionnaire. Many of the respondents reported that training and supervision differed when another language was involved. Supervisors reported difficulty in assessing students’ counseling skills and discomfort with an incomplete understanding of session content. Students described a greater focus on vocabulary at the expense of psychosocial dimensions. Despite this, most felt that using another language enhanced their training experience. As such, training programs might consider increasing support to these learners and supervisors by explicitly acknowledging the challenges they face, providing students with language tools to aid in their acquisition of basic skills and providing supervisors with new methods for assessing student counseling skills when using other languages.