The applicant seeks funding for a project involving a meeting to be held in Minneapolis on April 19-20, 1991. The topic of the meeting is """"""""Genetics Counseling: Ethics, Values and Professional Responsibilities."""""""" The meeting will be an invitation only """"""""working conference"""""""" involving 12 experts from outside Minnesota and 5 persons from Minnesota who will present papers and engage in discussions with an interdisciplinary and interprofessional group of approximately 20 scholars and professionals. All but one of the non-Minnesota speakers and all of those from MInnesota have already agreed to prepare written papers and make presentations at the conference. Those making presentations have been selected on the basis of their expertise in studying the practice of genetics counseling or on the basis of their work in providing services. The local participants have been selected on the basis of their previous work in the area of clinical genetics or as a result of their expressed interest in conducting scholarly inquiry in the domain of genetics as part of future projects to be undertaken by the Center for Biomedical Ethnics. The overall objectives of the meeting are: (1) To identify the critically assess current normative stances in the field of genetic counseling; (2) To examine the nature and adequacy of the norms of """"""""value neutrality"""""""" and """"""""nondirectiveness"""""""" for the current and future practice of genetic counseling; (3) To help identify those issues in the practice of genetics counseling most likely to be affected by the Human Genome Project; (4) To present the best thinking about the current ethical issues in the field of genetics counseling to a """"""""core"""""""" group of individuals at the University of Minnesota so that they will be in a better position to undertake a more systematic inquiry into these issues under the aegis of a long-term systematic study of the area; and (5) To produce a book of scholarly papers based on the conference which will help advance academic and public understanding of the ethical and value issues facing providers and patients in the area of genetic counseling.
