Lauren Facchini is from Seattle, Washington, and graduated from the University of Washington in 2013 with her BS in Physiology. As an undergraduate, she was actively involved in her housing community and served as president for two consecutive years. After graduating, Lauren combined her interests in science, teaching, and counseling to pursue genetic counseling. Prior to entering Sarah Lawrence’s genetic counseling program, she volunteered as a crisis counselor for a suicide hotline, shadowed and interviewed genetic counselors in the Seattle area, and spent time backpacking through Europe and Northern Africa.
Describe your clinical placement and role.
I am currently rotating at Columbia University Medical Center in the Pediatric Neurology Department. As a first-year student, I observed and assisted my genetic counselor, when she was seeing patients and working on research in order to further my genetic counseling knowledge and skills. As a second-year student, we begin to lead parts of the genetic counseling session, such as taking medical histories and pedigrees, to practice and refine our skills.
What was your favorite course so far?
My favorite course so far has probably been “Fundamentals of Genetic Counseling.” Our instructors were outstanding and provided multiple perspectives and approaches, which enhanced our learning, expanded our skill set, and allowed us to develop our own counseling style. Their enthusiasm for the field and dedication to the program at Sarah Lawrence was evident and helped make it a truly memorable class.
How did you find housing and move to New York City from the West Coast?
Moving across the country to New York City was incredibly difficult, yet very exciting. Using social media, I was able to find a classmate who was also from the West Coast wanted to live in Manhattan. Together, we searched several websites for hours every day until we found our current apartment on Gypsy Housing through Facebook. It was an incredibly competitive and complicated process, especially because we were in a different time zone and unable to see apartments firsthand, but we did manage to find a very lovely and affordable apartment in the city.