Clinical Education and Fieldwork
More than 130 experienced genetic counselors work with the University of Pennsylvania MSGC program to provide expert clinical education to students in the program.
Clinical work begins in the first semester with observational placements and progresses in each of the five semesters to performance of more complex and independent clinical responsibilities.
The program leadership carefully considers students’ past experiences, knowledge gaps, learning styles, and interests in matching them with clinical placements. The number of clinical supervisors and clinical settings allow students to follow tailored pathways through the program.
First Year Internships
These experiential courses expose genetic counseling students to the genetic counselor’s role in different settings. During the first year of the program, students have three distinct fieldwork experiences including:
- observations with genetic counselors in clinical practice
- rotations in a laboratory setting working closely with laboratory genetic counselors
- placements in a research, industry or advocacy capacity with a specific organization or research protocol.
Since this is the first exposure to these settings the experience is primarily observational, but as students near the end of each placement, they are encouraged to take on a more active role. During the first year, students attend their internships once a week.
Second Year Clinical Internships
During the second year of the program, students have four placements in genetics clinics, with a minimum of 20 days in each. Students attend these clinical internships two to three times a week, progressing to more participatory roles in each of four successive clinical internships.
Students have at least one placement in each of the following settings: general genetics, reproductive genetics, cancer genetics, and a specialty clinic. All students participate in pediatric, prenatal, and cancer placements.
The fourth clinical internship will be an elective experience providing students with opportunities to see diverse patient populations at specialty clinics at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) and CHOP, including:
- the Center for Fetal Diagnosis and Treatment
- pediatric hereditary cancer
- mitochondrial and biochemical genetics
- adult medical genetics
- adult neurogenetics
- cardiovascular genetics
Individualized clinical opportunities at some of the nation's premier healthcare facilities allow students to broaden their educational experience beyond traditional clinics to explore medical subspecialties, health care management, and diverse genetic counseling roles.
Through their clinical training students have exposure to cases representing a wide range of diagnoses and indications seen in a clinical genetics practice and collect at least 50 participatory encounters to satisfy the ACGC requirement. Students are supervised by certified genetic counselors with at least one year of experience, and typically graduate with well over 100 cases. By their final clinical internship, students feel confident to manage a case from start to finish with minimal supervision, drawing upon the basic competencies learned through the program.
Outstanding Clinical Supervisor Award
Congratulations to Laynie Dratch, ScM, LCGC, the recipient of the UPenn MSGC Program’s 2026 Outstanding Supervisor Award!
Laynie works as a research and clinical genetic counselor in adult neurogenetics at Penn Medicine, with a focus in frontotemporal degeneration and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis spectrum disorders. She received her ScM in genetic counseling from the Johns Hopkins University / NIH training program in 2020.
She was nominated for this award by second year students in the UPenn program, who called her “an absolutely incredible supervisor who counsels with compassion, kindness, and a genuineness which taught so much about how to provide psychosocial support to patients.” Several students noted that she provided clear and timely, thoughtful, actionable feedback, to recognize both growth and success and to point out missed opportunities, all of which allowed them to become more competent, confident and compassionate counselors. They appreciated her balance of support and encouragement to try new things, the learning opportunities and career mentorship she provided, and the excellent counseling skills she modeled.
Thank you, Laynie, for your work as an outstanding supervisor!
Past Recipients:
2025 - Haley Crane, MS, LCGC - Genetic Counselor with the Richard D. Wood Jr. Center for Fetal Diagnosis and Treatment (CFDT) at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
2024 - Lily Hoffman-Andrews, MS, LCGC - Genetic Counselor with Penn Medicine's Heart and Vascular Center
2023 - Erica Schindewolf, MS, LCGC - Then a Genetic Counselor with the Undiagnosed Disease Network at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and now with Ambry Genetics
2022 – Jessica Long, MS, LCGC - Genetic Counselor with the Cancer Risk Evaluation Program and Associate Director of the Lynch Syndrome Program at Penn Medicine
2021 – Colleen Muraresku, MS, LCGC – Genetic Counselor and the Clinical and Clinical Research Operations Director of Mitochondrial Medicine at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
2020 – Rose Giardine, MS, LCGC – Genetic Counselor in Reproductive Genetics at Penn Medicine
2019 – Sue Moyer-Harasink, MS, LCGC – Genetic Counselor at Nemours Children's Hospital
2018 – Janet Ober Berman, MS, LCGC – Genetic Counselor at Temple University Hospital, now with Reproductive Associates of Delaware
The Outstanding Clinical Supervisor Award is given by the Genetic Counseling Educators Association (GCEA) to recognize clinical supervisors for their exceptional contributions to genetic counseling student training. Second year students nominate genetic counseling supervisors for this award, and one supervisor from each genetic counseling program is honored each year.