Clinical transfusion medicine is an evolving subspecialty, which straddles

traditional areas of pathology and clinical hematology. This subspecialities

is concerned with aspects of blood procurement, including safety, logistics

and economics, and the appropriate use of blood products in different

clinical situations. This causes the transfusion medicine physician

to interact with (and occasionally come into conflict with!) surgeons, anesthesiologists,

internists, and many subspecialists in internal medicine,

particularly, oncologists and hematologists. The resultant of this interaction

should be improvement in blood utilization. In short, the role of

clinical transfusion medicine is to promote good transfusion practice.

Promoting good transfusion practice is often hindered by a lack of good

clinical data validating many current transfusion practices. Confounding

this problem is the often entrenched belief in the clinical usefulness of

many traditional transfusion practices. The transfusion medicine physician

is, therefore, frequently put in the position of altering practices, a

precarious role in any institution!!

This short book is intended to put clinical problems in perspective as

they relate to decision making regarding blood transfusion. It is aimed at

nursing staff, perfusionists, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and

medical students and residents, many of whom lack depth in their understanding

of transfusion. The language is kept as nontechnical as possible

therefore, and detail is intentionally omitted. However, it is hoped that

the background information and general principles should facilitate the

exercise of good judgment.