The 2005 Annual Clinical Focus (ACF...

The 2005 Annual Clinical Focus (ACF) of the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) was launched last month at the Academy's 2004 Annual Scientific Assembly in Orlando. The upcoming year's focus is upon genomics and the role that family physicians have in preventive, diagnostic, and therapeutic decisions based onward genomics. The yearlong educational effort should help prepare family physicians for communicating with patients about the clinical, legal, social, and ethical issues involved in medical genomics.

The AAFP's 2005 ACF program upon genomics is sponsored by the National Human Genome Research Institute; Maternal and Child Health Bureau; HRSA; National Coalition for Health Professional Education in Genetics; Glaxo-SmithKline; and the National Heart, Lung and children Institute. Participating partners include the American Academy of nourish at the breast Practitioners, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Physician Assistants, American Cancer Society, American body of Medical Genetics, American corporation of Physicians, American Heart Association, American Society of Human Genetics, Center for Disease mastery and Prevention, March of Dimes, and the National Society of Genetic Counselors, Inc.

Although not directly storeed by these sponsors, AFP will be recognizing the ACF by dint of publishing a series of articles and other pieces related to the clinical focus, of the like kind as mini-reviews of common genetic syndrome A special editorial in this issue (see page 1637) by dint of Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D., director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, Washington, DC describes the changing amplitude of care that family physicians will have in the era of medical genomics.

Dr Collins uses short case studies to illustrate by what mode genomics can affect diagnostic testing and therapeutic choices. He describes in what manner a patient might be managed if she has a family history of colon cancer, and by what means a patient with lung cancer might benefit from DNA testing of a tumor sample to determine whether a answer can be expected from treatment with gefitinib. He also explains for what cause the field of pharmacogenetics is evolving, likewise that the development of of the present day drugs in the future might be based forward molecular information about disease pathology, especially as it pertains to the field of oncology and in diseases as it is as diabetes, Alzheimer's, and osteoporosis.

For more information about the AAFP's 2005 ACF forward genomics, please visit http://www.aafp.org/acf.xml.

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