Transfusion Medicine, Apheresis, and Hemostasis

Book excerpt: Transfusion Medicine, Apheresis, and Hemostasis: Review Questions and Case Studies is the collaborative effort that spanned a time period of 2 years and included 50 experts, many whom are national leaders in their respected fields. It also represents the passion and privilege we feel to teach the next generation of physicians in Transfusion Medicine and Apheresis. The main goal for this book is to help the readers build a solid foundation of both basic and advanced conceptual knowledge to prepare for the American Board of Pathology (ABP) certification exam in Transfusion Medicine. This book is not intended to be a substitute for textbooks, original research or review articles, and/or clinical training. Further, since the field of medicine, both from a scientific and regulatory perspective, rapidly changes, the readers are advised to continuously update their knowledge by attending national meetings and reading clinical journals. To equip the readers with the basic knowledge in critical reading and data analysis, which is an essential skill in daily medical practice, a novel chapter titled "Data Interpretation in Laboratory Medicine was included in this book. In this chapter, the readers are asked to make logical conclusions based on the given data and/or statistical results. Moreover, there is also a chapter on "Practical Calculations in Transfusion Medicine, Apheresis, and Hemostasis to help consolidate all the necessary formulas commonly used in daily practice for easy reference. These chapters are unique to our book and will not be found in any other currently on the market. All of the questions in this book were originally created by the authors of each chapter. Each question can either be standalone or part of a case scenario representing challenge cases in Transfusion Medicine, Apheresis, and Hemostasis. These questions often represent both rare and common clinical scenarios that the authors have seen during their clinical practice. Each question is then followed by 5 possible answers, with only one being correct (or the best answer). After the question, there is a conceptual explanation followed by a more factual explanation of the right and wrong answers. We gave the individual authors the freedom to choose how they explained the wrong answer choices. Some authors chose to be more direct (e.g. Answer A is incorrect because...), while other authors chose a more conversational style (e.g. Human resources (answer A) includes staffing, selection, orientation, training, and competency assessment of employees). This format is designed to help the student linking the conceptual and factual knowledge together to form a solid foundation for use in clinical practice. At the end of each chapter, there is a list of articles and textbooks that will prove useful to the motivated student who wishes to become an expert in the field. Another special feature to our textbook is the presence of a pre-test and post-test, which are provided to help the readers with self-assessment. As stated above, the main focus of this book is to help the readers preparing for the ABP certification exam in Transfusion Medicine. However, due to the interdisciplinary nature of the field of Transfusion Medicine, Apheresis, and Hemostasis, we believe that this book is also beneficial to and can be used by all clinicians involved in the management of complex transfusion, apheresis, and hemostasis issues, such as hematologists, anesthesiologists, surgeons, and critical care physicians. We further believe that it is a helpful guide for these specialists to prepare for their own specialty certification exam, when the topics are related to Transfusion Medicine, Apheresis, and Hemostasis.