7 August 2017 (Monday) - ASH Newsletter

The A.S.H. newsletter arrived in my inbox today. I’ve not bee ngetting stuff fomr the A.S.H. for that long…much of their output is very clinical. Interesting nonetheless, but is it of that much relevance to me?

The Wide World of Medical Education Hanny Al-Samkari, MD, offers advice for trainees who are passionate about teaching and interested in pursuing a career in medical education. Advice From the Future We asked innovators and mentors in hematology and oncology: What advice would you give to early-career hematologists? Tips and Insights from ASH Annual Meeting Regulars Surbhi Sidana, MBBS, and Lisa Baumann-Kreuziger, MD, discuss how they’ve benefited from attending the annual meeting and offer tips for first-time attendees.

Choosing Your Own Training Adventure: Where Do You Start? Leidy Isenalumhe, MD, MS, chair of the Trainee Council for 2017-2018, discusses the array of career choices and the difficulties of transitioning from trainee to attending.

Now online: the August issue features a comparison between American and European drug approval processes, a conversation with a lymphoma doctor running for Congress, and more.

Training for a Career You Love: What Can the ASH Trainee Council Do For You? Jennifer Saultz, DO, on how the ASH Trainee Council helps trainees face and overcome the obstacles in today's field. From TraineE-News: Navigating Your First Job in Hematology Tips on how to negotiate your first job in hematology from Sherif Badawy, MD, MBBCh. A Day in the Life: Martin Palmeri, MD Former Trainee Council member Martin Palmeri, MD, walks us through a "typical" day as a private practice, community-based hematologist.

7 August 2017 (Monday) - ELevated Methotrexate?

 

High dose methotrexate infusion is widely used in the treatment of malignancies such as leukemia, high risk lymphoma, and osteosarcoma. It can be associated with multiple adverse effects, especially renal toxicity, which could leads to acute kidney injury (AKI), delaying drug elimination and worsening its toxicity. Leucovorin, a reduce folic acid, is commonly used with […]

Read more of this post

7 August 2017 (Monday) - National Immunization Month

I didn’t realise that August is National Immunization Month. But in honor of this the nice people at Wiley have given me access to several relevant articles including:

British HIV Association Guidelines on the Use of Vaccines in HIV-Positive Adults 2015 HIV Medicine Seroepidemiology: an underused tool for designing and monitoring vaccination programmes in low- and middle-income countries Tropical Medicine & International Health Universal infant immunization and occult hepatitis B virus infection in children and adolescents: A population-based study Hepatology Genetic evolution in immunization Reviews in Medical Virology Update on Vaccination Guidelines for Older Adults Journal of American Geriatrics Immunization of looked-after children and young people: a review of the literature Child: Care, Health, and Development Herpes zoster with meningitis in a vaccinated, immunocompetent child Journal of Dermatology Managing a child with possible allergy to vaccine Pediatric Allergy and Immunology Pregnant women's attitudes toward antenatal pertussis vaccination Australian and New Zealand Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology

Perhaps not of immediate relevance to my daily round, but nevertheless interesting.

5 August 2017 (Saturday) - A Mystery

I shall relate a little episode which happened at work today. I’m still rather mystified as to what it was all about…

Whilst on duty I received a phone call at 18.15 on Saturday evening from someone claiming to be a sister called (let’s say) Vanessa at another hospital’s A&E. I won’t say where it was… but it was close enough that it was not unreasonable that we might share care with some patients.

This so-called sister was wanting me to tell her a specific patient’s blood group claiming that if I didn’t tell disclose this information then the patient would have to have O Neg as she had an Hb of 7.2, and the patient would rather have her own blood group. They had (and supplied) all the patient’s demographic data.

This is a perfectly reasonable request *if* you don’t know anything at all about blood bank practices.

I wasn't going to give out any information; certainly this all seemed odd. I told them this request was highly irregular, and they should contact their own laboratory. They argued for a bit and then hung up.

I phoned the BMS at this hospital who confirmed that they would want a blood sample before doing anything; as is standard practice in pretty much the entire world.

I phoned the A&E department at that hospital who assured me they had no one named Vanessa working there.

​

So… someone with no understanding of hospital practice was trying to find a named person’s blood group. A prank call? Someone trying to find out if a certain person was registered with our hospital’s systems? Someone trying to do a blood transfusion on their own? Whatever it was I wasn’t going to admit whether or not I even had any information on the named patient.

I wonder what that was all about?