Brianne Kirkpatrick, Genetic Counselor, Founder of Watershed DNA
Chapters:
00:00 PTDD
04:33 Serving as crisis counselor
08:07 Everyone has a right to an accurate medical history
14:59 The new reality
18:47 Power tilting toward the next generation
You order a $99 home DNA test for some holiday pleasure. It’s a bit of fun. Right?
Until it turns your life upside down. Which is when you contact a professional.
Brianne Kirkpatrick is a genetic counselor and founder of Watershed DNA who has built up her own practice specializing in genealogy and ancestry testing. She has been helping those of us who found out our father was not our biological father. She’s been crisis counseling those of us who have just broken up with our half sibling. She’s been laughing with those of us who are deliberately looking for a DNA test that might help us find a different family than the one we have!
Is there any turning back from this onward rush to abandon genomic privacy? How will it change our culture? Brianne says it is certainly the new reality, and it will tilt power toward the younger generation.
Ever since we’ve been sequencing DNA, we’ve been readjusting our expectations of how deterministic it might be in our lives, often adjusting downwards. But as the recent wave of “family surprises” is showing, genealogy is one area where, for some, DNA is proving to be destiny.
