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Genetics nursing is a nursing specialty that focuses on providing genetic healthcare to patients. The integration of genetics into nursing began in the 1980s and has been a slow but important process in improving the quality of healthcare for patients receiving genetic and genomic based care from nurses. Modeling the U.K., the U.S. critically established a set of essential competencies as a set of guidelines for registered nurses. Through the process of consensus the essential competencies were created by the Steering Committee, and provided the minimalist competency and scope of practice for registered nurses delivering genetic healthcare to patients. The Nursing Code of Ethics and other ethical foundations were established for field of genetics nursing to provide regulations when ethical issues develop. ==Background== Adopted from the early Christians in 30 AD, the term nurse was created from the Latin origin nutrire, which means to nurture or nourish. Establishing nursing as one of the oldest forms of healthcare and continues to be a growing field of medicine. Genetics, which is the study of inherited traits and their variation is a much more recent field of medicine. The experiments and theories of Gregor Mendel in the mid-19th century helped to introduce the field of genetics into medicine. Genomics is a subset of genetics that compares and analyzes genomes and how the genes interact with one another. Both genetics and genomics help to reveal how closely related we are to each other and to other species. This scientific study is ongoing and strives to interpret health, illness, disease risk, and treatment response.The progress in genetics and genomics is applicable to the entire spectrum of health care and all health professionals and as such to the entire nursing profession. Genetics and genomics are important to healthcare because it provides information in the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of diseases and illnesses. Even though genetics has been a growing field of medicine since the mid-19th century, the process of integrating genomics into the nursing curriculum, National Council Licensure Examinations, continuing education, and certification was not highlighted until the 1980s. Genetics and genomics are fundamental to the nursing practice because the basis of genetics can recognize individuals at risk for certain illnesses and diseases, identify the risks of certain disease or illnesses when conceiving children, facilitate drug dosage or selection for certain illnesses or specific patients, and genetics promotes benefits in treatment of particular ailments.〔 However, it took twenty more years until the Health Recourses and Services Administration (HRSA) stressed the significance of incorporating genetics into nursing education.〔 After HRSA’s proposal, there was minor advancement and the development that was established contained a lot of inconsistency. The progress of integration continued to be slow and limited. By fall of 2005, only 30% of academic nursing programs contained a curriculum thread in genetics and genomics.〔 One of the leading factors in the limited progress of genetics integration is the relevance to all nursing practice is not fully appreciated by many, and genetics is also seen by many nurses to be a subspecialty. Also state boards of nursing do not require competency in genomics and genetics as part of licensure and genetics and genomics are not considered in the evaluations of accrediting bodies. The extremely large size and variation of the nursing workforce provides an extra challenge in the many existing barriers needed to be overcome for genetics to be implemented.〔 Some of the first successful training of genetic practices in the nursing workforce can be seen in the United Kingdom. The main aspect of the U.K.’s strategy was simplicity. They achieved this by constructing seven essential competencies that were applied to the entire nursing profession. In 2003, the U.K. National Health Service created the NHS National Genetics Education and Development Centre. The main functions of these programs were to enhance genetics education and to dispense materials and resources for educators of all genetic professions. The United States mirrored the efforts and ideas established in the U.K. and adopted similar methods and competencies.The U.S National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIGH) united to initiate strategies, training programs, committees, and define the competencies.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Genetics nursing」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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