1 November 2026 (Sunday) - BTLP-TACT Exercise

Bearing in mind I’ve had yet another whinging email about how few BTLP-TACT exercises I’ve done (only six last month!!) I thought I might see if I could get ahead of the curve this month.

I was presented with two cases:

 

90063 – a forty-five year-old woman in the haematology clinic with sickle cell disease needing a two unit top up.

She grouped as O Rh(D) Positive with a negative antibody screen. I selected two units of O Rh(D) Positive K-Negative HbS-Negative blood for her.

 

06929 – a fifty-nine year-old chap with PR bleed needing group and save.

He grouped as A Rh(D) Positive with a negative antibody screen.

 

I got it right, which was a result.

1 November 2026 (Sunday) - ITP

Here’s an interesting little overview of the state of treatment of ITP. Back in the mid-eighties I used to go to the haematology clinic of a satellite hospital on a Friday morning where I would do a couple of dozen (manual) platelet counts. We had many patients with ITP whose platelet counts were often in single figures. I can remember may of those people being one big bruise.

How times have changed…

29 October 2026 (Thursday) - HCPC Update

The nice people at the HCPC sent their update today. The bit about next year’s CPD week struck me as potentially rather useful. Back in the day I would have got really involved with it. Back in the day I used to organize weekly CPD sessions. Part of me wondered about revisiting that, but motivating the disinterested was hard work. Do I want to start all that again?

I shall just keep an eye out for anything that might be useful to me… but (sadly) reading the rest of their update, my hopes aren’t high.