In this gripping episode of Genetics for Healthcare, we sit down with Dr. Alexea Gaffney-Adams, an infectious disease specialist and internist who found herself on the wrong side of the medical system she serves. Despite knowing and sharing her family history, as well as her insistence on her own high-risk status, Dr. Alexea was repeatedly denied genetic testing by her own colleagues—a decision that transformed her from a potential "pre-vivor" into a late-stage cancer survivor.

This conversation reveals an uncomfortable reality of cancer disparities, illustrating how these gaps in care are created when high-risk patients, particularly Black women, are not offered the genomic tools necessary to prevent disease.

It was only after being diagnosed with cancer ...