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Genetics Group Offers Online Resources

NCHPEG, founded in 1996 as a collaboration of the American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association, and the National Human Genome Research Institute, is an "organization of organizations" dedicated to the promotion of education of health professionals in genetics. NCHPEG counts more than 120 organizations as members, including government agencies, private industry, consumer and volunteer groups, managed care organizations, health care and medical associations, and genetics professional societies.

APA members can find a wide variety of resources available on genetics on NCHPEG's Web site at <www.nchpeg.org>. Among them are reviews of genetic resources, presentations from NCHPEG meetings, a quarterly newsletter covering clinical news and medical practice issues, a calendar of events, and the Genetics Resources on the Web search engine. APA members may be particularly interested in a CD-ROM and other educational materials on psychiatric genetics. This digital tutorial reviews the genetic basis of major psychiatric disorders, describes genetic conditions that may present with psychiatric symptoms, provides recent research updates in the field of psychiatric genetics, and outlines issues in genetic counseling for psychiatric disorders. All resources are available without charge.

At the 2005 NCHPEG annual meeting in January, the keynote speaker, Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona, M.D., M.P.H., presented information on the Surgeon General's Family History Initiative, a comprehensive program that emphasizes the importance of family history of medical illness in health care decisions, medical screening, and preventative management. In the absence of a full knowledge of the specific factors involved, a family history may serve as a proxy for understanding underlying genetic and environmental contributions to disease. Resources to help patients obtain and record their family history can be found on the NCHPEG site or at <www.surgeongeneral.gov>.

The NCHPEG annual meeting is open to all. Christine T. Finn, M.D., a psychiatrist with training in medical genetics, is the current APA representative to the meeting. Those with questions about NCHPEG can e-mail Finn at cfinn{at}partners.org.

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