Lauren Westerfield, MS, CGC

Education

Personal Statement

As a genetic counselor, I aim to balance the medical, emotional/social, and logistical needs of families facing the possibility of a genetic condition or birth defect affecting their current or future pregnancy. My goal is to help families navigate the process in a way that respects their values, beliefs, and goals as part of the multidisciplinary care team at the Texas Children’s Maternal Fetal Medicine department, Fetal Center, and Family Fertility Center. It is rewarding to be able to empower families to be active participants in their medical care and to support them in difficult times.

Clinical Interests:

Complex fetal anomalies

Genetic disorders

Medical ethics

Research Interests:

Fetal whole exome sequencing

Single gene non-invasive prenatal screening

Organization

Selected Publications

Westerfield LE, Braxton A, Walkiewicz, M. Prenatal Diagnostic Exome Sequencing Review. Current Genetic Medicine Reports (2017) 5: 75. doi:10.1007/s40142-017-0120-y.

Westerfield LE, Stover SR, Mathur VS, Nassef SA, Carter TG, Yang Y, Eng CM, Van den Veyver IB. Reproductive genetic counseling challenges associated with diagnostic exome sequencing in a large academic private reproductive genetic counseling practice. Prenatal Diagnosis 2015 Oct;35(10):1022-9.

Westerfield L, Darilek S, Van den Veyver IB. Counseling Challenges with Variants of Uncertain Significance and Incidental Findings in Prenatal Genetic Screening and Diagnosis. Journal of Clinical Medicine 2014, 3(3), 1018-1032.

View Publications:

https://www-ncbi-nlm-nih-gov.ezproxyhost.library.tmc.edu/pubmed/26275793

https://www-ncbi-nlm-nih-gov.ezproxyhost.library.tmc.edu/pubmed/26237491

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40142-017-0120-y
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