Master of Science in Genetic Counseling

Gain access to top clinical sites in Boston and throughout New England at the MS in Genetic Counseling program at the MGH Institute. Learn in interprofessional teams of students at a graduate school focused exclusively on the health professions.

Team-based learning (TBL) is at the heart of our program. Throughout your course of study, you will work with a team of students with diverse skills and backgrounds. Rather than sitting in lecture all day, class time is spent with your team under expert faculty guidance, working through real-life clinical problems and scenarios.

The Master of Science in Genetic Counseling Program will:

Educate skilled, knowledgeable, and compassionate genetic counsellors who will contribute to high-quality health care for a diverse society and provide genetics leadership.

Seek to recruit qualified students of diverse backgrounds and contribute to culturally competent care to promote access to healthcare.

Offer a curriculum that reflects current knowledge, a commitment to critical inquiry, life-long learning, evidence-based practice, and engagement in active learning.

Provide leadership in the development of innovative clinical education models to support quality practice in genetic counselling.

Foster scholarship in genetics and genomics for faculty and students through research collaborations, mentorship, and capstone projects.

Model collaborations with providers and researchers from different institutions within and external to Mass General Brigham, matching the genetics field's collaborative nature.

The program is five semesters in length. The first year primarily focused on didactic and team-based education, observational fieldwork, simulated patient sessions, and initiation of the Capstone research process. The second-year includes didactic work focusing on clinical and non-clinical fieldwork experiences and completion of the Capstone project. Interprofessional training is infused throughout the curriculum. The curriculum consists of 66 credits of didactic, team-based learning, clinical, and research coursework.

Genetic counsellors are increasingly being recognized for their contributions to primary care and the vital role in today's health care settings.

Your studies will also prepare you to understand how individuals engage cognitively and emotionally with genomic information, how they cope with the information, and how they make decisions regarding using the information.