Specialization in Transfusion Medicine by Under- and Postgraduate Training

Abstract

This paper focuses on the problems of undergraduate training in transfusion medicine. Transfusion medicine started more than 50 years ago as blood banking and became now a medical discipline, with own theoretical and practical fundaments. Recently, M.A. Blajchman described this new discipline [1]: “Transfusion medicine is that multidisciplinary branch of medicine that focuses on all the available medical, scientific, and technical information applicable to this speciality for the benefit of patients receiving blood products or related materials produced by biotechnology. Those engaged in the practice of transfusion medicine have the responsibility of integrating the various concepts, techniques, and other elements of relevant knowledge from contributing disciplines such as blood banking, immunohematology, infectious diseases, immunology, transplantation biology, genetics, protein chemistry, molecular and cell biology, clinical medicine, laboratory sciences, epidemiology, microbiology, and virology. Issues relating to the recruitment of donors and the collection of whole blood and blood components, such as the psychology of the motivation of donors, are also germane, as are legal and ethical questions associated with the collection and the clinical use of blood products.