Clinical genetics is a primary medical specialty in Sweden. In the specialty classification of Socialstyrelsen, the National Board of Health and Welfare (HSLF-FS 2021:8), it belongs to the group of individual primary specialties. The specialty covers both outpatient clinical services and laboratory diagnostics.
Outpatient clinics
Clinical genetics outpatient clinics investigate and diagnose hereditary conditions and offer genetic counselling to families affected by hereditary diseases.
Laboratory
The laboratory performs genetic analyses for these hereditary diseases. It also analyses certain non-hereditary (acquired) genetic alterations that matter for diagnosis and treatment, primarily in leukaemias and tumour diseases.
Professional groups in clinical genetics
Biomedical laboratory scientists (BMA)
Perform the genetic analyses in the laboratory.
Clinical geneticists
Physicians with specialist training in clinical genetics, who lead the clinical outpatient work and are medically responsible for the laboratory services.
Hospital geneticists
Scientists (clinical laboratory geneticists), usually with a PhD, who are responsible for running and developing the laboratory work.
Genetic counsellors
Work independently on family investigations, including their own patient consultations, under the supervision of a clinical geneticist.
Please note
SFMG cannot give advice to individual patients about specific genetic diseases.
Clinical genetics is primarily a consultative specialty, so patients rarely attend a clinical genetics clinic as their first point of contact. Members of the public who suspect that a disease in their family may be hereditary are therefore advised to contact a first-line medical specialty. In the first instance this is a general practitioner (specialist in family medicine); if hereditary cancer is suspected, an oncologist should be consulted, and if a hereditary disease of the nervous system is suspected, a neurologist.