During the first month the fellow’s educational focus is to become oriented to the daily operation of our Blood Bank by receiving one-on-one lectures from the faculty and shadowing these faculty members throughout the day to get exposure to the
normal work-flow of the lab. Also, the fellow will receive “hands on” laboratory training with our blood bank educator in our blood bank simulation lab. As part of this “hands on” training the fellow will be exposed
to routine and specialized immunohematology test methods (i.e., ABO typing, antibody screens, antibody panels, DAT, elution, absorption, enzymes usage, antibody titrations, red cell phenotyping, etc.).
During the next 3 months the fellow will be exposed to routine blood bank operations (i.e. serologic problems, transfusion reactions work-ups, component storage issues, preparation of specialized blood products, appropriate blood usage, and inventory
management). The fellow will have graduated responsibility during this time and is expected to actively participate in the work-up of blood bank cases. Also, the fellow will be exposed to various quality assurance and quality control procedures
for our blood bank.
From month 4 to 6, the fellow will continue with their blood bank training (as delineated above), but apheresis training will be added to their daily activity. During this time the fellow will receive training
in rational approaches to therapeutic plasmapheresis, therapeutic erythrapheresis, therapeutic leukapheresis, and therapeutic plateletpheresis. The fellow will participate in the care and management of the apheresis patient (i.e., writing consult
notes, procedural notes, and apheresis orders). By the end of their fellowship the fellow will be proficient in evaluating, assessing, and treating a wide variety of patients who require therapeutic apheresis for various disorders.
After 6 months, the fellow will be expected to function at a “junior faculty” level. The fellow will take a more prominent role in supervising/teaching any co-rotating clinical pathology residents and/or medical students
during these weeks.
Also, during the fellow’s last 6 months they will rotate to the two “away” rotations (i.e., blood center and stem cell collection center). During the blood center rotation, the fellow will
gain expertise in donor recruitment, donor eligibility, blood collection, donor testing, pre- and post-donor care, and blood inventory requirements. Also, the fellow will gain experience in the standards and regulations (i.e. FDA, AABB, and
HIPAA) applying to blood collection. During the stem cell collection center rotation, the fellow gains an understanding of the technical and regulatory aspects of peripheral blood stem cell collection, storage, and processing. Instruction on
current good manufacturing practices (cGMP) and current good tissue practices (cGTP) applied to processing, ex vivo manipulation, and storage of all cellular therapy products will be given during this rotation.