Vishakha completed her undergraduate training and medicine and surgery through Manipal College of Medical Sciences and undertook her internship in Nepal. She came to the U.K. and commenced her further medical training with a focus on colorectal surgery. Following this, she ventured into special needs education and worked as a special needs teacher. Vishakha then pursued two postgraduate qualifications and established her genetic counselling career with this knowledge base which she has been doing for 15 years. She was appointed as a Consultant Genetic Counsellor at Guy’s & St Thomas’ 6 years ago and jointly leads the cancer genetics service including the cancer risk assessment service and the hereditary breast and ovarian cancer service. Her role has involved implementing the family history network within nursing and the embedded genetic counselling model within cancer care. Vishakha was Education and Training Lead for the Trust during the implementation of the 100,000 genomes project and supported resource development and educational delivery. She leads an annual cancer genetics course which has attracted health professionals across all disciplines both nationally and internationally. She has co-authored over 30 publications and several book chapters in the last five years and presented at several European conferences. Her research interests are focused on hereditary breast and ovarian cancer and she is the principal investigator of 3 research studies. Vishakha was the first genetic counsellor to be appointed to the NHS England Clinical Reference Group for Clinical Genetics as London representative and has recently been reappointed. Vishakha has held the position of Chair of the Genetic Counsellor Registration Board for three years which is the professional accredited regulator for the genetic counselling profession in the U.K. She is also an assessor for the Academy of Healthcare Science and a professional member of this regulatory body.
