Nurses in the United States are increasingly faced by professional dilemmas related to obtaining, using and storing genetic information about patients and their families. They face these dilemmas in the absence of professional policies for the management of the genetic features of their practice and with considerable heterogeneity in terms of their own educational backgrounds. Continuing education concerning advances in genetic science for nurses is not widely available and there is currently no credentialing process for advanced levels of nursing practice in genetics. The long-range objectives of this project are to: (1) survey a national randomized sample of practicing nurses to obtain accurate information about the ways in which nurses are currently eliciting, using and storing genetic information about patients and their families; (2) identify the ethical dilemmas that nurses face in their various roles in the identification of genetic traits, chromosomal abnormalities and diseases with a clear genetic base; (3) utilize the resources of the American Nurses Association to engage in broad based professional policy development for practicing nurses with an emphasis of the management of genetic information; and (4) conduct four regional meetings to educate and update targeted groups of nurses including the presidents and executive directors of the 53 constituent state nurses associations of the American Nurses Association, and selected nursing school deans in each of the four targeted regions concerning new developments in genetics and policies for the management of genetic information.
