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The Jehovah’s Witness Patient

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Anesthesia in High-Risk Patients

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Abstract

Treatment of anemia and bleeding in Jehovah’s Witness patients represents a major challenge to medical, anesthetic, and surgical teams. Their beliefs regarding blood transfusion elicit major ethical and legal issues that are often not easy to resolve. A holistic approach, focusing on preoperative optimization, blood loss minimization, and anemia tolerance optimization is key in the successful management of these patients. This is best achieved in centers having the appropriate facilities for surgery and perioperative blood conservation techniques. Counseling patients about the different options they will accept or refuse is also of major importance when developing the individual patient blood management program. While treatment of Jehovah’s Witness patients along the years has led to major advance in bloodless surgery, the principles of patient blood management are universal and should be applied to all patients.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Quality and Security, Queen Fabiola Children University Hospital (QFCUH), Université Libre de Bruxelles, Bruxelles, Belgium

    Chantal Lerminiaux M.D.

  2. Department of Anesthesiology, Brugmann University Hospital—QFCUH, Université Libre de Bruxelles, 4 Place Van Gehuchten, B-1020, Brussels, Belgium

    Philippe Van der Linden M.D., Ph.D.

Authors
  1. Chantal Lerminiaux M.D.
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  2. Philippe Van der Linden M.D., Ph.D.
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Philippe Van der Linden M.D., Ph.D. .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anaesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Louis Pradel Hosp, Hospices Civils Lyon, Lyon, Rhône, France

    Jean-Luc Fellahi

  2. Service d'Anesthésie-Réanimation, Hôpital Nord, Marseille cedex 20, France

    Marc Leone

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Lerminiaux, C., Van der Linden, P. (2018). The Jehovah’s Witness Patient. In: Fellahi, JL., Leone, M. (eds) Anesthesia in High-Risk Patients. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60804-4_22

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60804-4_22

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-60803-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-60804-4

  • eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)

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