This is (supposed to be) a reflective diary by a (not very) anonymous biomedical scientist who works somewhere in the south of England. One day this diary may well be submitted to the Health and Care Professions Council as evidence of ongoing continual professional development....
Gunshot Wounds Cause Significant Mortality, Blood Utilization, and Health Care Costs in the U.S. | |
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Reducing Red Cell Use for Patients with Sickle Cell Disease during a Pandemic | |
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A very valid reason for doing CPD is to keep up-to-date with current trends and practices. It has to be said they change at breakneck speed in blood transfusion.
Take
fresh frozen plasma… When I was a lad the stuff only came in A and AB flavours.
There was (supposedly) no need for blood group O FFP. Then the stuff
came out, and there was (so it was claimed) no need to look at the
labels. Anyone could have FFP of any group. Nowadays giving O FFP to a non O
recipient is a “never-event”.
Take
single unit transfusions. Back in the day it was widely said that the dangers
of a single unit transfusion greatly outweighed the benefits. Nowadays single
unit transfusions are the norm.
But things don’t just change over time. They change from place to place. Here in the UK is it standard practice to make sure that *all* women of childbearing age receive K-negative blood products. That is *all* women without exception !!!
Someone
from America posted on the Facebook “Blood Bank Professionals Group”
this morning saying that an obstetrician had asked for K-negative blood for his
patient. All the UK-based people commented “well so he should”, and all
the American-based people laughed.
I
suppose the difference is that in the UK pretty much all of the donor blood is
K-typed whereas in America the patient would be billed for the typing, but it
did bother me somewhat to see posts from American lab people who were saying how
easy it is to get K-negative blood for someone with anti-K antibodies (which
it is), but at the same time were seemingly oblivious to the dangers of
HDFN due to anti-K antibodies.
Time for another BTLP-TACT exercise…
I was given two cases
69866
– a thirty-two year-old woman in the ante-natal department requiring group and
save.
She
grouped as O Rh(D) Negative with a negative antibody screen
74949
– a fifty-three year-old chap in the haematology clinic requiring two units of
blood on the following day.
He
grouped as O Rh(D) Positive with a negative antibody screen. Now no special
requirements for blood had been specified and with only four irradiated units
of O Rh(D) Positive in the fridge I selected two units of K-Negative
non-irradiated blood
I got the green light
July 6, 2021
June 30, 2021 
June 22, 2021 