Introduction:

The introduction of omic technologies into the clinical practice requires that health professionals incorporate knowledge in this field.

Objective:

To assess the knowledge about omic technologies of the physicians who are starting their specialty studies in the secondary level of healthcare.

Methods:

A questionnaire was conducted on 53 health professionals who started their medical residences, both clinical and surgical, at Dr. Ernesto Guevara de la Serna General Teaching Hospital in Las Tunas, Cuba. Both anonymously and by means of the questionnaire, inquiries were made regarding the knowledge about tests in the fields of molecular biology, genetics and pharmacogenetics, about genome sequencing, and about the biological information databases available on the internet.

Results:

37.7% of the participants did not know about molecular biology tests and only 3.8% reported to have some knowledge about next generation sequencing. Although 90.6% of the respondents were aware of some genetic test, none could mention one correctly. Only 20.8% declared their knowledge about some disease-susceptibility genes. The possibility of sequencing the entire genome was recognized by 49.1% of the sample; 90.6% of respondents expressed some interest in receiving information about it.

Conclusions:

There is insufficient knowledge about omic technologies in the research participants. It is required to train health professionals to face the introduction of genomic medicine into the clinical practice, which can and should be done from the beginning ofthe medical training.

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