Student Spotlight - Kate Cioffi

After a year of coursework, my classmates and I were eager to begin our clinical rotations. My first rotation block was in cancer genetics, a specialty that is particularly dear to me as I am a Genetic Counseling Assistant at the UPMC Hereditary GI Tumor Program. Although there is always a level of anxiety that comes with starting something new (the transition from didactics to clinicals is certainly a significant one!), I learned an incredible amount in just nine weeks.

During the rotation, students split their time between the UPMC hospital system and Allegheny Health Network. This serves to enrich the student experience as it enables us to be exposed to a variety of counseling styles, patient populations, and indications. It’s also valuable to observe how processes and workflows differ between health systems, especially given the fact that students will likely be spread throughout the country after graduation.

Students start small by initially taking on certain parts of the session and working their way up to complete the entire session by their fifth week. Though this may sound fast, with the support and feedback from supervising genetic counselors, this goal is more than attainable. In my nine weeks on the rotation, I saw patients with a variety of indications beyond those that are considered more typical for a cancer genetics clinic, like Hereditary Breast and Ovarian cancer. I counseled patients with suspected conditions ranging from Gorlin syndrome to Von Hippel Lindau disease. Students also spend three days in the Hereditary GI Tumor Program, gaining additional experience with hereditary GI cancer syndromes like familial adenomatous polyposis. There, we also observe the physician, Dr. Randall Brand, work with patients to gain a broader perspective of these patients’ clinical care.

Another important aspect of the rotation are the weekly clinical case reviews, wherein counselors and students present their upcoming cases. We discuss plans for each patient and get input from the team regarding differentials, testing approaches, and more. I found this helpful in improving the way I communicate with other providers and learning to identify the most critical parts of a case for review.

In all, I really enjoyed my time on the rotation. I appreciated being able to work with many different genetic counselors and glean bits of wisdom from each. It was rewarding to be able to work with so many different patients, who all had different stories and motivations for coming in to see us. Though I consider cancer genetics to be a bit of a “safe space” for me given my background, I’m excited to begin my rotations in other specialties and learn everything I can from the amazing genetic counselors we have in Pittsburgh!