The GeneSight test has really helped me in my practice by giving me a more concrete underpinning for precision decision making with my patients

Since I’ve been able to use GeneSight testing and I see how effective it is for my patients as a clinician, it makes me feel empowered and it makes me feel like I’m doing the right thing.

My name is Debbie Thomas, and I’m a psychiatric nurse practitioner. I’ve been in private practice for about 30 years now, I love what I do.

One of the things that most intrigued me about the GeneSight test is the way we always made decision-making for our patients about medications. Before we did that, based on what meds did you have a family member on? Did that work well for you, or it worked for them, this will probably work well for you. We don’t get the best results in meds that way, it’s throwing something at the wall and really hoping it sticks.

So, just using family history to determine medication management is really just a little tiny piece of the information that we need to have to make good decision making, or I guess I should say best decision-making, it’s just a little part of it.

There’s so much more that really comes into effect, that’s where pharmacogenomic testing really has been a benefit to my patients. It gives you so much more information about why to choose this particular med versus this particular med, when both of those might be, or seem to be equally efficacious for that particular patient or that particular disorder.

One of the really nice things about GeneSight is they’ve got wonderful medical science liaisons who are available to help walk you through it if you feel uncomfortable, or if you have questions, I’ve worked with several different ones over the years, and they’re all just top notch and they’re very willing to help you with that and they’re always available.

I think the GeneSight test has really helped me in my practice by really giving me a more concrete underpinning for precision decision-making with my patients in terms of medication management. It’s been probably one of the best tools I could have in my toolbox for patients in the past 10 years.