By now, I hope some of you are coming to hereditarycancer.com regularly to poke around, and to check for new "BRCA & Beyond" posts. If you're not a regular, welcome! If you are familiar with our blog, you'll notice that I'm a new voice to the mix. My name is Deepti Babu, and I am a genetic counselor. After working with families in a hospital setting for almost 15 years, I came to Ambry Genetics to be their in-house medical writer. I've always loved writing and did plenty of it alongside my clinical practice. Despite this, though, shifting my career in a new direction wasn't a straightforward decision for me. I wondered if I'd be abandoning my training and all the families I met through the years - the stories they'd been brave enough to share with me, the trust they placed in me, the inspiration they gave me on a daily basis... Who in their right mind would turn their back on that?
Well, guess what. I didn't have to. Turns out that my role at Ambry is chock-full of inspiration that propels me every day and my genetic counselor brain is on full-time, just in a slightly different way; now, it's active when I'm developing and reviewing the content you see here and elsewhere. Stories and opportunity surround me, like the chance to be involved in creating this website. And being able to contribute to this blog, an ongoing conversation between patients and medical experts. In fact, here are three reasons why I'm - and you should be - a regular reader:
- It's about topics that matter to you. Involving patients and patient advocacy groups allows us to discuss what you care about - what it's like to receive genetic test results, how to tell other people about them, and what to do next. We'll explore these and many other issues with you here.
- It's accurate, which is important for anything you're reading online. We're not rehashing Wikipedia here. Our content comes from scientific evidence and collective clinical know-how. Check out posts from Dr. Robina Smith (breast cancer surgeon), Jessica Profato-Partlow (genetic counselor), and Michelle Jackson (genetic counselor) to see what I mean.
- It's inspiring, whether or not you've been impacted by a BRCA1/2 mutation. Patients like Eve Mart and Theresa Smith bravely reveal moments of fear, courage, and hope. I'm not aware of hereditary cancer in my family, but posts by Eve and Theresa keep me coming back for my hit of energy and encouragement, like a virtual B12 shot in the arm.
Maybe I've convinced you to give our blog a try and see what you think. Thank you for reading. And to the families I met during my time in clinical practice - thank you as well. I am grateful for our time together, and carry your stories with me every day.
