Birdie. Last year at the Love for Liam golf outing, I accidentally scored a birdie. I say accidentally because my golfing abilities remain mostly hypothetical, and my usual contribution to the team is better measured in persistence than athletic excellence. A birdie, at least in my case, is an anomaly that is rare enough to remember – and our ENGIN team keeps reminding me of this. However, over the last few months, I have found myself describing our epilepsy genetics program in similar terms. Not as an accident, but as a historical anomaly. A program like ours, with sixteen attendings, two nurse practitioners, seven genetic counselors, three genetic counseling assistants, a dedicated administrative structure, and multiple connected research labs is not something that naturally happens. We have now seen more than 7,000 patients and made more than 1,000 genetic diagnoses. The question I have been thinking about recently is not how a program like this was built, but how it can continue. I know that this blog post has two separate threads that only come together later, but please hang in there. Continue reading →