How to Teach Genomics: A Workshop for Nursing and Midwifery Educators

Nurses and midwives comprise ~50% of the global healthcare workforce and play a crucial role in delivering the benefits of genomics to everyone. However, genomics has typically not been systematically incorporated into pre-qualification curricula. Internationally, numerous challenges are recognised including professional (lack of leadership or strategic direction from national bodies); organisational (lack of support from universities to revise curricula) and individual (lack of suitable educators). Educators may not feel confident or be competent to teach genomics. This may include having no/limited experience of genomics within a clinical setting to draw upon in their teaching; be unsure of the genomics knowledge and skills required by tomorrow’s nurses and midwives or be unaware of educational resources available.
A four-day in-person workshop focusing on the design and delivery of pre-registration genomics education aimed at new and established UK educators, was developed through Wellcome Connecting Science and successfully delivered in 2022 and 2024. The course was not designed to teach participants genomics; however, time was allocated for this if needed. Learning outcomes were met through a mixture of presentations from nurses and midwives providing genomics informed care, interactive sessions and group work. Evaluation data from 2022 informed the 2024 programme. All respondents in 2024 indicated high levels of satisfaction, usefulness and enablement as an educator, across all questions. Longitudinal evaluation data will be gathered 6 months post-workshop.
Applications from non-UK educators evidenced the need internationally for this type of course. Participants welcomed the inclusion of more overseas educators in 2024 and identified additional benefits.