Preparing the workforce for genomic medicine: International challenges and strategies

Medical genetics has historically focused on the management of rare disorders, mostly due to variants in single genes or chromosomes. Advances in genomics, however, are leading to the capability of including genomic approaches more broadly into the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of both rare and common disorders. There is a well-established genetics workforce in many parts of the world, particularly in higher-income countries, though this workforce is neither large enough nor widely enough distributed to fuel the integration of genomics across all of medicine. This chapter will review the status of genetics training in various parts of the world and the opportunities and needs for expansion of training into genomic medicine.