Hello! I've returned with my podcast Demystifying Genetics. In this return pod I talk to senior genetic counsellor Elly Lynch. Elly and I discuss genetic counselling in the current climate in Melbourne, Australia.
Hello! I've returned with my podcast Demystifying Genetics. In this return pod I talk to senior genetic counsellor Elly Lynch. Elly and I discuss genetic counselling in the current climate in Melbourne, Australia.
Matt Burgess (00:07):
Hi, I'm Matt Burgess and I'm the host of Demystifying Genetics. Today I'm going to talk to the fabulous genetic counselor, Elly Lynch. In this return season of demystifying Genetics, we're going to cover such things as working remotely during a global pandemic and other interesting genetic counseling things. So please join us for a really interesting conversation. Hello and welcome, Elly. Congratulations on being my first guest back in season two of Demystifying Genetics.
Elly Lynch (00:44):
Thanks, Matt. It's very, very lovely to be back and to see you again. Well not really see you to speak to you again. Where, where exactly are you at the moment?
Matt Burgess (00:54):
Well, it's kind of crazy, like since my last podcast about two years ago I'm actually living in Princeton in New Jersey, in the United States.
Elly Lynch (01:05):
Wow. What's it like over there?
Matt Burgess (01:09):
I, it's funny because at home it's been really quiet all day and really quiet all week and about half an hour ago. We live right in town and some beautiful busters are playing lovely live music, but it's really loud. So I'm actually sitting in our walk-in wardrobe right this sand and all of the clothes are sort of acting as you know, soundproofing. But yeah, yeah, Princeton is lovely. We're going well, even though the world is kind of a little bit crazy at the moment.
Elly Lynch (01:42):
Yeah, definitely. Well, I'm sitting, I'm sitting at home locked in my bedroom because we're all working from home at the moment because of the the craziness of the world, particularly in Melbourne at the moment.
Matt Burgess (01:53):
Yeah, yeah. So can you tell me a little bit about sort of life for you at the moment? Like, you are a genetic counselor, you're a senior genetic counselor but you're living in Melbourne and it's sort of in the middle of the global pandemic and your city has been in lockdown for a little while, so Yeah. How, how are you working?
Elly Lynch (02:15):
Yeah, so this is our second period of lockdown at the moment. So we are all really have been directed to work from home if we can work from home. So I've been working from home actually, it's now July, since March. And that's something that as a genetic counselor, I just never thought it would be possible to do. I was, I just thought there's no way I'd be able to do my job full time from home Uhhuh. But it's amazing how you actually can do your job as a genetic counselor from home. So all of the appointments people that I've been seeing have been through telehealth, and if we need one of the clinical geneticists or oncologists to, to meet with the patient as well, they dial into that telehealth appointment from the hospital or their homes, wherever they're and I mean, there are some technology issues and glitches sometimes, but surprisingly, it actually has been working really well. And I guess demonstrates to me that probably we should have used more of telehealth in the past and we can definitely use it better in the future. Yeah.
Matt Burgess (03:24):
<Laugh>, I, I remember one of our colleagues she was one of the lecturers that I had in genetic counseling way back when, when I was a, a student. She did her PhD in telehealth and that, I think that was like about 10 years ago now, Alvera. Yeah. And I think, I don't know, maybe she just did it a little bit before her time or ahead of her time. Like, it is kind of crazy, like there's so many instances where we said, oh no, we couldn't possibly do that remotely or online. And like, like is there any area that you don't think is working as well, like in telehealth? Or is it kind of just, it's just working for everybody or?
Elly Lynch (04:10):
No, I, I mean, definitely that there are instances where I think it would be better to see a family or a patient face-to-face. There have been times when people have been really distressed and I mean, I think telehealth where you can see them is better than telephone. Um-Huh. But that, you know, in those instances, it would be nice to be there with that person rather than, than you know, over, over a screen. Also I think, you know, when there are children that you're seeing where, or even adults where you need a geneticist to examine them it's very hard for geneticists to examine patients over the screen as well. Yeah. and so, you know, if that's a part of a consultation that you're doing as a genetic counselor, that can be quite tricky. But, but there's a lot of stuff that we do that actually works reasonably well, I think over telehealth.
Matt Burgess (05:07):
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And because I know when I met you like we started working together I think about 10 years ago now. You in our unit you sort of were more focused on cancer and I was in the, the Neurogenetics clinic and I think recently or more recently you've been doing more neuro stuff. I know like with Huntington disease appointments, for example the, the rule kind of was it always has to be in person, you know, like that's one area where you would never do a, a phone consult or a telehealth appointment. Are you doing that for like consultations for people with Huntington disease or similar conditions?
Elly Lynch (05:53):
Yeah, I have done so we had a discussion as a, as a unit about how to approach this. And really we felt that because there's no end inside <laugh> with this pandemic in Melbourne we didn't know when we're gonna go be able to go back to offering face-to-face appointments. And we just felt like it just wasn't fair to those patients to keep them waiting. I mean, obviously people who are at risk of Huntington's disease, this is, it's so often such a big step for them to come forward and to contact a clinic and to want to discuss the option of predictive genetic testing. That to be told, we can't see you until we can see you face to face. We just felt wasn't very fair to those patients. Yeah. So so yes, we have been doing consultations via telehealth. I think, to be fair, I think there have been less referrals for Huntington Disease predictive testing over this period. But there definitely have been some referrals and there have been some patients that, that our team has seen over, over telehealth.
Matt Burgess (07:00):
Okay. It's kind of, I don't know, like I think it's just such a, a surreal kind of <laugh> event, isn't it? Like we just never thought we'd be in this kind of situation, but Oh, yeah.
Elly Lynch (07:13):
Yeah. It's been, yeah, it has just been such a, just a crazy year and even setting up, like setting up so that you can work remotely as well. You know, the center that I work at at the moment didn't have electronic genetic files, so they had to sort that out, you know, within a week or two <laugh> so that, so that everybody could access the information that they needed from home. And kudos to them cause they did it pretty quickly. And yeah, it's, I mean, in a way it's actually forced things that probably would've taken years to happen super, super quickly, which will benefit the units over time, I think. But yeah, it's, it's been interesting. And the other proportion of my job, I do some project management for a research study and that's, that's always been pretty easy to work from home because you know, a lot of what you do is writing papers and things like that. And having said that though, I think, you know, we used to have a lot of meetings and now all of those meetings are over zoom rather than face-to-face
Matt Burgess (08:26):
Uhhuh <affirmative>. Oh, cool. You just mentioned so many things there that I kind of wanna ask you about. So if I can, I'll try and remember. But I guess number one or something that I wanted to ask you about was I know when we worked together, like one of the, the fun things that we used to do was go on outreach. So we would do outreach clinics and depending on, on where it was like we would either drive to, you know, like the little country town or we would fly. And now kind of with the advent of, you know, all of these telehealth appointments, do you think that outreach clinics are a thing of the past?
Elly Lynch (09:08):
No, I don't think so. I don't think they're a thing of the past, but I think that they can definitely be run better for the patients. I think we'll be able to, I'm sure that we'll be doing more telehealth clinics in addition to those face-to-face clinics as well. I mean, you can't, like I said, you can't, there are some situations where it really is much better to see these patients face-to-face and, you know, telehealth doesn't replace that, but I think it can compliment that. So so there'll probably be a combination of, of face and telehealth clinics. I actually dunno if you know this actually, but in the last like couple of months I've been doing some work with the outreach clinic in Alice Springs in Australia.
Matt Burgess (09:53):
Oh, ok.
Elly Lynch (09:54):
Yeah. so that's just one day a week something that I've been doing. And and it's been interesting talking to the the specialists there about, there was a lot of referrals to sort out and about which patients would be appropriate for telehealth and which patients would be better suited to face-to-face appointments. Cause there's obviously a lot of indigenous families in around Alice Springs who might not have access to technologies who you know, might live out in communities. It'll be fairly mobile, so, so I'm, I'm not sure that tele, you know, telehealth would get necessarily be the answer for all of those families.
Matt Burgess (10:37):
Yeah, I guess that's an important point, like to be sort of client focused. You know, not everybody has electricity or not everybody has well I guess most people have got electricity, but you know, maybe they don't have access to the internet or you know, sort of the technical skills to be able to to dial in. And yeah, I guess, you know, like with these outreach appointments, are they, do people just pick up their, their laptops or their iPads and use it from home? Or do they go into like a, a community health center where somebody can help facilitate the appointment and I guess they're all sort of important things to consider. Yeah,
Elly Lynch (11:19):
Exactly. Yeah, I think so. I mean, sometimes people can just do the appointment on their phone as well. They can just click on the link if you've got internet on your phone, they can just pick up their phone. So it's pretty amazing. But that also poses unique challenges cuz sometimes you know, people might not be in the right, you know, might not be in a private place or might not be where you would normally expect someone to be for a genetics appointment. They might be at the
Matt Burgess (11:46):
Yeah, I kinda was thinking about that the other day and, you know, when you make an appointment for somebody to see you know, like a, a a specialty like genetics and they go to like a major hospital and they have to actually, you know, take time out of their day, it kind of you know, sets up the appointment and kind of gives an indication of the importance of that. Whereas when you are saying, oh, you'll call somebody, like, yeah, they could be getting petrol or they could be out grocery shopping or, and you know, you kind of, you don't wanna be directive and tell them, you know, are you sure? You know, like maybe you shouldn't be doing that. But yeah. It's kind of a difficult conversation to have sometimes. Yeah,
Elly Lynch (12:31):
That's true. I mean, I, to be honest, I actually, because we email them an appointment, you know, an appointment letter with a link to click on at a certain time, in my experience, actually, most people have sort of set aside the time. Some people have been at work and have ducked into a another room at work. But I know some of my colleagues have had that experience where people haven't been, you know, in a particularly private spot. And it makes, makes the consultation and the discussion usually about fairly sensitive issues. A bit challenging.
Matt Burgess (13:03):
Yeah. <laugh>. Yeah. And so you said at the start of our call that you, you've locked yourself in your, your room. Yeah. And I know you have three lovely sons that are, I'm guessing are in the house and hopefully doing their homework <laugh>. Yeah. how have you spoken to them about Covid and you know, like, ha has that been a difficult conversation to have?
Elly Lynch (13:31):
I mean, it, you know, you just can't escape from it here, right? It's all over the news. It's, it's everywhere. So they, kids are pretty resilient and kids accept things fairly readily. You know, they, they, they understand the premise that, that, you know, there's this virus that's very contagious and that's why we have to wear a mask when we go outside and that's why we have to wash our hands. The, my older two twins, they're 12. They're at the high school now. So they, you know, they're old enough to, to have a pretty good understanding of what's going on. My little one is eight, he's in grade two. At the start, you know, it was really hard for him to, to understand why he couldn't have his friends over and why he couldn't have his birthday party and Aw,
Matt Burgess (14:22):
<Laugh>.
Elly Lynch (14:22):
Yeah. Yeah. But but as time, as the months have gone on, he's also, you know, become pretty accepting of it and, you know, we'll, we might have the news on in the background or something, and they, you know, the, the kids, the kids keep an eye out of, of what the numbers are that day, where I've always been pretty honest with my kids and I want them to know that they can ask me questions and that I'll answer them. Honestly, I don't, don't wanna hide things from them. So that seems to well with, with with my boys.
Matt Burgess (14:53):
Yeah. Okay. Cause I know like, sort of, you know, with our training, we, like, we think about, or we're conscious about talking about medical stuff with children and keeping it age appropriate and you know, how we would sort of frame things and then all of a sudden there's like this huge medical kind of thing that's happening in the world. And you, I guess you kind of know stuff because you're, you're a parent, but I'm just wondering like, like the, the themes or the, the things that we think about as a genetic counselor, has that sort of come in at all, or No, not really yet.
Elly Lynch (15:27):
Yeah, no, I mean, I, I, I think it does, I mean, I actually have been doing also a little bit of work in pediatric cancer as well. And yeah, I think that that what I was just talking about then sort of applies as well in the setting. With kids, you've gotta, you're right, you've gotta give them information in a way that's age appropriate, but you, what's really important I think, is that kids know that they can ask questions of you and that you'll answer them honestly as well. And I don't think kids like it when they think that you're hiding stuff from them, uhhuh. But I guess that when, when we talk to you know, sometimes you might have families that you see who you know, perhaps for example, there might be some cancer predisposition gene in the family, and the parent doesn't want to tell the child about a, a reason for a predictive test.
(16:25):
And, you know, we encourage parents to, to be open and honest with their kids about about why they're having testing and depending on their age, you know, that the amount of information that you would give them would vary mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. But it, that honesty is always seems to be the best, best policy in these situations. And also, you know, to say as well, that it's normal. It's normal, and when you're told that you've got a health problem or potentially got a health problem, or when you're told that there's like a global pandemic and a virus going around, it's okay to be upset by that. And that's pretty normal to be upset by that. Yeah. But, you know, generally things are gonna be okay, you know, we're gonna organize screening for the kid who might need it or, you know, eventually we'll get a, a vaccine for this virus and things will pass. So yeah, I think that you can draw a parallel between them.
Matt Burgess (17:20):
Yeah. Ok. And you mentioned that one of your jobs or what you've sort of been doing more recently is project management work. One of the things I've been thinking about, or what I'm going through, I work at the moment is genetic counselors in sort of non-traditional roles. And I, I don't know if I really like that term, but I think when people think about genetic counseling, they think of clinical genetic, and there's so many different areas where people can use the skills that they've learned in genetic counseling in other areas. And just wondering, like, do you agree with that? And like how, like, could your job be done by a person that isn't a genetic counselor? Or what, what do you think you bring to that role?
Elly Lynch (18:11):
Yeah, that's, that's a good question. And something that I guess I've thought a little bit about lately, and there's been, there've been quite a lot of discussions with the certification committee and with I can't remember the name of the committee, but the other committee that's looking at these sort of broadening the certification process for these people working in non-traditional roles. I mean, I think having this, the training to be a genetic counselor does help you with well, has definitely helped me in my role. So I've, I, I work worked as a clinical project manager where we were recruiting patients from five different hospitals for, well, it was 11 different research studies in mm-hmm. And so when you're dealing with doctors and specialists and genetic counselors from lots of different places, you know, communication is probably the most important skill that you've got.
(19:20):
And I guess from, as a genetic counselor, you'll learn, you're taught to you know, active listening. So listening to people's concerns hearing them out, and then perhaps communicating with other people who might be involved in that particular study about the best way to do things. And yeah, I think, I think having that, that those genetic counseling sort of 1 0 1 skills definitely, definitely helped me in my role as well as things like organization and and, you know, understanding the, the genetics and the genomics as well. You know, I'm sure that there are probably other people who could do that project management role, but I think having the experience of knowing what it's like to work in a hospital and the fact that, you know, there are a lot of competing interests and at the end of the day you know, patient, patient stuff comes first, you know, you've got a lot of competing priorities and, and you need to prioritize the patient. And so having lots of meetings about things might not be at the top of these doctors' priority list, but Um-huh. But you know, just, just understanding that and being, being empathic to that and keeping that in mind when you, when you're trying to get a project completed in time I guess is important. Sorry, that was all a bit garbled. <Laugh>.
Matt Burgess (20:47):
No, no, no, that was good. That was good. I, I was just thinking you know, when you said to be completed in time, like, do you think that, is that sort of like an ethical consideration? Like you've been given money by the government to do it, so, you know, we need to do the research in this particular time with the resources that we have, but obviously, like for some patient, well, for most patients, the clinically or like, you know, the treatment or getting better is at the top of their list, probably not participating in research. Like that must be hard to kind of juggle or sort of, you know, get that kind of balance, right.
Elly Lynch (21:22):
Yeah. That, that's true. And but, you know, at the end of the day obviously, you know, the ethical research, you don't want a patient to be coerced into participating in a study. So you have to, the patient's needs and, and and desires go first. But you know, it, it just means that when you're coordinating the study, you've gotta think, you've gotta be realistic about the fact that some people might need more time to make a decision. But, you know, recruitment will open, you know, for a period of 18 months, and those people who wanna participate can participate and those who don't you know, don't have to. So yeah. But I mean, obviously when you get funding for a research project you know, there's levels of governance and you've got to you've got to meet the deadlines that, that have been set. Otherwise, you know, you won't complete the study in time and you won't have anything to report that's helpful. Mm. But I mean, our project was about implementation of genomics, and so really we wanted to know what those real world, if genomics is gonna be implemented into the real world, we wanted to know what their what it's like in the real world as well. So we didn't want it to be too artificial.
Matt Burgess (22:44):
Mm-Hmm. And I guess you know, like you kind of mentioned writing reports and you know, like one way to demonstrate how well the projects working or not working or what the issues are is to write a report. But I guess another sort of important component to that is that actually like publishing articles and I've seen that your, your involved or your name has been on quite a few articles lately. Can you tell me about like, what it's like sort of publishing as a genetic counselor and like, do you think that that's an important thing for, for genetic counselors to be involved with? Or yeah, what are your thoughts on that?
Elly Lynch (23:30):
Yeah, I mean, I think sometimes I think as a genetic counselor it can be hard to have the time to be to be involved in research because your patients, or, you know, if you're involved in managing a service, there are some things that take a lot of time and perhaps you need to prioritize. But I think it's really important for us as a profession to, to do research and to public our work. Cause I think we've got a lot of really interesting things to say. So yeah, I definitely encourage genetic counselors to be involved in, in research and, and, and publications. I mean, I, I, I would never say that that is an area of strength of mine. I find it actually find it really hard to do. But I, you know, and that's why it's really great to be linked in with a team of people who you know, all have, can bring different skills to, to the research.
(24:33):
So you know, I one of the things that I've been involved in doing lately is supervising masters students from the genetic counseling who do a research project as part of their part of their training. Um-Huh <affirmative>. And I think that I've been doing that for a few years now, and that, that also taught me a lot about research as well, because you'd be part of a supervisor team and as a genetic counselor there's certain things that you can bring to that team that, you know, are important for the student to think about or, and, you know, you might have ideas about really great research studies that could be done. But you know, I, I certainly haven't had the training in the methodology, but I've learned a lot from the other supervisors that I've worked with who do have that training in methodology. So I actually just have done my first round of coding myself, which is very exciting.
Matt Burgess (25:30):
Oh, well done. Congratulations. Yeah.
Elly Lynch (25:33):
So it was scary, but but it, you know, it was great to learn how to do that. And likewise, working in the big research study that I've been working in, it's really you know, the, the team of people in, in that in that group have a lot of experience in research and I have just learned so much from, from them as well. So yeah, I've been really fortunate. I'm really glad that I've done that and, and I've learned a lot. And that's, I guess that's the thing, as a genetic counselor, you just keep on, there's so many things that you can do and you just keep on learning the whole time. I just feel like I'm learning stuff every day.
Matt Burgess (26:09):
Yeah, <laugh>. Yeah, I, I remember you know, somebody asked me what my new job was like, and you know, cuz I, as you know, I've been working clinically as a genetic counselor for about 15 years, but now living in the United States, I work for a genetic testing company, and so I'm using those genetic counseling skills or, you know, that experience, but sort of from another perspective. And like the other day I was like, oh, I'm just sick of learning. I wish I could just like, for a couple of days, like not learn anything new, just go to work, do my job. Like, but I think, you know, like part of it, it is good that, you know, it keeps me on my toes and it keeps things interesting. And like, I remember like when I started in genetic or when we started in genetic counseling, like they didn't really have like like a molecular way of looking at the chromosomes. And then, you know, all of a sudden there's like, they're doing these arrays and it's like, oh my God, that just makes me sound so old. But you know, like things are changing and evolving all the time. But yeah. You know, it's kind of definitely makes me laugh.
Elly Lynch (27:17):
Yeah. That's why Yeah, the te just keeping up with the technology yeah, it keeps you pretty busy. You've gotta keep on going to meetings and reading and Yeah. It's and surrounding yourself with experts who understand it, who you can go to when you've got a question.
Matt Burgess (27:32):
Yeah. <laugh>. Well, I think, you know, just sort of like, I guess another skill that we have and that you kind of have demonstrated in our conversation so far is kind of time management. Like, sounds like you're involved with a lot of different kind of areas, but one of the other areas I wanted to sort of just talk to you a little bit about was your involvement with the Board of sensors. Mm. And sort of like, you know, how important is that? Like isn't you know, like graduating from a a university course like with a proper qualification, like is that enough or do you think that like, we do need like this extra level and just wondering what your thoughts are there.
Elly Lynch (28:16):
Yeah. so they, they actually had the a s G AGM this week and Joe Burke gave a lecture at the AGM and she was talking about certification. And I think it really made me reflect on what she said and the fact that I strongly agree with her that, you know, when you start, when you finish the course, you learn the courses are great and they're really, they're very full. And you learn a lot, but I don't think that you can really start you know, it's just so different when you actually start working compared to to doing it in the course. That's when you're really thrown in the deep end
Matt Burgess (28:56):
<Laugh> and
Elly Lynch (28:57):
Yeah. And so I just think certification is really important and I think, you know, the fact that your thinking about a, a consultation or you know interactions with your patients and reflecting on those and, and learning from those for for future patients that you might see is just really, really very important. So I'm like, I'm a really strong advocate for certification and I know that it's a lot of work and I know that it, it's you know, when when we did it, we had to write 20 long cases. It's, it's different now. But it's, it's still a lot of work. But you know, I, in the, on the certification committee, they changed the name now to the certification committee. You know, we always interview people at the end when they're doing their final submission three.
(29:55):
Um-Huh. And you know, we ask them about the process of certification and how they found it and everyone always says, you know, it was really hard and it was a lot of work, but I'm so glad that I did it because I just learned so much. And I think, I think that's really true. And actually I would encourage people to be on the, the certification committee as well because I think I'm almost finished my chairman on the committee. But it's really helped me as well supervise associate genetic counselors. And you know, I've learned heaps from all of the cases that I've read and and you know, people, there are some people out there who are just amazing who can just yeah. You know, have, have, have done such a good job and have you know, I learn, I learn when I read the cases as well. And it's made me reflect on, on my role as a genetic counselor. So I'm really supportive of people doing certification and I think it's really important.
Matt Burgess (30:56):
Yeah. Yeah. I remembering back to writing those 20 long cases, it was such <laugh>, it was so hard, but it was a
Elly Lynch (31:04):
Slog. Yes,
Matt Burgess (31:06):
<Laugh>. But I, I put a lot of importance on it. Like I, it was something really important to me and I was so proud of myself when I, I I finished and I think some of my colleagues you know, like I guess we do what we place importance on or, you know, what's important to us and that can be different for everyone. But I know for myself, I, you know, doing my I was gonna say doing my part two, which, so we don't call it that anymore <laugh>, but doing our certification, like it was so important. And yeah, I it was Sunday night for me when the the a SGC AGM was on. Yeah. And I thought I didn't, I, I don't know, I wasn't planning on attending and then I thought, well, no, I really should. And I was chatting to some friends on via WhatsApp, you know, like normally I sit next to like a couple of friends and we kind of chat with each other. It was really lovely. And cuz it was nighttime I was able to to sit a lovely Californian Chardonnay while I, I attended as well, so <laugh>
Elly Lynch (32:12):
Oh, that's, so you listened to the lecture as well. It was great, I thought.
Matt Burgess (32:16):
Yeah. And so I thought Joe Burke did a fantastic job and, you know, congratulations to her for, for giving this first you know, lovely you know, talk. And it's, it's named after the first chairperson of the A G C Judith Elba. And it kind of made me kind reflect, or go full circle because Judith Elba was my first genetic counseling supervisor in my very first genetic counseling job. Oh,
Elly Lynch (32:47):
Wow. I didn't know that.
Matt Burgess (32:49):
Yeah. So it's like, oh, I need to, I've been trying to get in touch with her because I would love to have her on as a guest as well.
Elly Lynch (32:57):
Yeah. She would be amazing. It'd be great to hear what she had to say.
Matt Burgess (33:01):
Yeah. So I guess one other thing before I let you go it's been lovely hearing your voice and your beautiful Australian accent and <laugh>, you know, I, I'm, as I said, I'm in America and I'm surrounded by Americans and you know, and just thinking about doing our job but doing it differently, like you worked as a genetic counselor in the United Kingdom. How was that experience?
Elly Lynch (33:29):
Yeah, that was great. That was about 15 years ago now. I just went over for a year. And I worked in a cancer hospital. And yeah, I was really I'm really glad that I did that when I could before I think it would've been much harder once you've got kids to bring with you across to the other side of the world. But I really enjoyed it and I met some amazing people over there. And also it also made me appreciate that, you know, we're doing things really well in Australia as well. But yeah, I still, I still you know, occasionally keep in touch with the, with the team over there and yeah, it was such a, it was a really great experience and I would encourage people to do that when they can. If, if, if they can, when the pandemic is over and we're allowed to leave, we're allowed to leave the country, let alone our suburb <laugh>.
Matt Burgess (34:23):
Yeah. Or, or leave the state as the case is in Australia at the moment.
Elly Lynch (34:28):
Yeah. What's it like in the us Are you guys all wearing masks? Are you locked down or what's going on over there at the moment?
Matt Burgess (34:36):
America is such an interesting place and it's kind of interesting that mask wearing has become a political thing and not, you know, and this is kind of a generalization, but in a lot of states that are more sort of republican they kind of, the, the rate of mask wearing is much lower, but that's where a lot of the cases, cases of covid 19 are occurring at the moment. And so I live in, in Princeton in New Jersey, which is much more of a, a democratic state. So Princeton, even though it's only about an hour from New York, it's, it's like a little country town and about half of the town is made up of the university, but because none of the students are here at the moment you know, it's just a, a lovely little town and it's the middle of summer. So every day it's sort of you know, in the thirties, which is, which is mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and e everyone, I would say more than 95% of people wear their mask every time they, they leave the house. Yeah. And all of the restaurants have organized tables on the street so you can sort of dine outside and oh,
Elly Lynch (35:55):
Sounds so nice listening to that in a Melbourne winter morning <laugh>
Matt Burgess (36:01):
When
Elly Lynch (36:01):
We, when we can't even go to a cafe. I'm so jealous. <Laugh>.
Matt Burgess (36:05):
Yeah. I mean, I, I I I do miss the food from Melbourne. I, I think that you know, the cafe culture and the coffee culture in Melbourne is much better. Or like, I, it's, it's my favorite, so I I do miss that. But yeah, I, I feel like you know, living at the moment where I am, it's really good. Whereas, you know, my my role or my job the headquarters or the lab is actually based in, in Texas and it's completely different down there. You know, like there are cases of covid all the time and yeah, it's crazy. And, you know, even just sort of on, on this topic one of the things that our lab has started doing is COVID 19 testing. So, you know, we have I think three over 326 million people that live in this country. And getting access to quick and reliable testing has been an issue. And now our lab has started doing that type of testing and it's just interesting to get our heads around it. Like it's still a genetic test, but it's an infectious test. And the turnaround time, you know, like a quick genetic test is normally days or weeks or mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, you know, even months sometimes, whereas this is hours and Yeah.
Elly Lynch (37:27):
Yeah.
Matt Burgess (37:28):
So it's kind of crazy. It
Elly Lynch (37:30):
Is. Yeah.
Matt Burgess (37:33):
But one final question before I let you go. What do you love about your job?
Elly Lynch (37:39):
Oh, wow. That's a hard, that's a hard question to answer. I, I do love my job and I, and I tell a lot of people that, that I, that I love my job and I feel really lucky to love my job as well. I think the thing, the thing that I really love is you know, and that I get a lot of satisfaction from is meeting meeting patients and families and I guess getting to know them and hopefully being able to support them often during what's a really difficult or challenging time for them. But you know, it, it really, you do feel really fortunate that people put their, their trust in you during these, these times. And and you know, if you, if you get a patient tell you that they appreciate your help, it just, you know, just does make you feel really, really good and that you've, you know, that you've done something worthwhile.
(38:39):
So I, I love that part of my job. And and you know, I also love working in, in teams. You know, I work in a couple of great teams of people who are really, really smart <laugh> people who, who I just learned heaps from all of the time as well. Whether they be other counselors that I work with or geneticists or medical specialists who all have or, you know, people in our team who work in evaluation or education, they just have so much expertise in their areas and, and, you know, are willing to share that. And so learning from them and working, working with these great teams is you know, is, I feel really lucky to be able to do that. And I just love it and I could see myself doing this for a long time.
Matt Burgess (39:31):
Ah, beautiful. I, that's just lovely. Like, I think it's really important, like if you can say that you love your job, you know that sounds great. So thank you.
Elly Lynch (39:44):
Cliche, but you know, we all have, we all have hard days, but but overall the positives outweigh the negatives, that's for sure.
Matt Burgess (39:53):
Yeah. well that's good. Thank you so much for being my first guest in this new season of demystifying Genetics. I've really enjoyed sitting in my closet having a bit of a chat with you.
Elly Lynch (40:09):
Thanks. And chatting too.
Matt Burgess (40:12):
Excellent. And I'll, I'll talk to you later.
Elly Lynch (40:14):
Okay, thanks. See ya.
Matt Burgess (40:16):
Thanks. Bye-Bye.