Program Description

The fellow will spend nine months on the UT Southwestern Medical Center campus and three months at Carter BloodCare in Bedford, Texas. The time on the UTSW campus will be divided into seven months clinical transfusion medicine, two months research/elective, and one month divided between the UTSW HLA Laboratory and Children’s Health℠ Children’s Medical Center.

The participant will be integrally involved in the activities of both an independent community blood collection center and three hospital transfusion services. The hospitals are conveniently located on the UTSW campus. William P. Clements Jr. and Zale Lipshy University Hospitals are private tertiary referral hospitals with emphasis in cardiac surgery, neurosurgery, and transplantation. Parkland Hospital is a major trauma center with one of the largest obstetric services in the country. Children’s Medical Center is one of the nation’s leading pediatric hospitals.

Active transplantation services include kidney, bone marrow, heart, lung, and liver. Apheresis services are well utilized, both for cell collection and therapeutic procedures. The apheresis service at University Hospital performs more than 3,000 outpatient and inpatient procedures annually, while Parkland Hospital performs about 1,200 procedures annually. The blood donation center collects approximately 400,000 whole blood donations per year and is involved in peripheral blood progenitor cell harvesting and cryopreservation as well as bone marrow processing.

The emphasis of the Blood Bank/Transfusion Medicine Fellowship will be on clinical consultation with physicians, patients, and donors, with excellent laboratory exposure to both serologic techniques and blood component processing. The responsibilities will include participation in resident education and attendance at policymaking and utilization review organizations. Opportunities for research are available and encouraged.

The program is designed to provide extensive training of the highest quality targeted at the following three main objectives:

• Educate a physician who is considered to be a specialist and expert in transfusion medicine in the management of patients requiring various blood component therapy and therapeutic apheresis.
• Develop a physician who is a specialist in blood banking with regards to blood donor eligibility and processing
• Develop the physician as a researcher and trainer. The primary vehicle to accomplishing these goals will be practice-based learning by direct involvement in patient management. Fellow responsibilities fall under the areas listed below:

Under the direct supervision of the Transfusion Medicine Faculty, the Fellow is responsible, in a graduated fashion, for:

• Managing transfusion-related issues at Parkland Hospital and Clements and Zale Lipshy University Hospitals.
• Evaluating patients referred for therapeutic apheresis at Parkland and University Hospitals.
• Assisting in day-to-day management of the outpatient and inpatient therapeutic apheresis service at Parkland Hospital.
• Attending daily patient transfusion medicine rounds with faculty, residents, and medical students.

Upon completion of the fellowship the fellow should:

• Be familiar with apheresis and blood banking techniques and equipment.
• Be knowledgeable with the etiology and features of situations/diseases particular to Transfusion Medicine. Fellow should be able to develop an appropriate diagnosis management
• Be thoroughly knowledgeable in hemostasis and is able to advise clinicians on appropriate component therapies including clotting factor concentrates, Rh immune globulin, recombinant FVIIa, prothrombin complex concentrate, etc.
• Be knowledgeable with the clinical outcomes of treatments and alternative therapies
• Possesses the skills necessary for effective teaching and communications with primary care and referring physicians regarding all aspects of diagnosis and management of Transfusion Medicine diseases.
• Possess the skills and desire to effectively impart this knowledge in a teaching and presentation related environment.

Research

The fellow is expected to participate in one or more research projects related to transfusion medicine, hemostasis or therapeutic apheresis to submit and present the abstracts to national scientific meetings, and to publish the data in journals related to these fields.

Requirements

Prospective candidates must have completed an ACGME-accredited residency in clinical pathology, combined anatomic/clinical pathology, internal medicine, pediatrics or anesthesia. They must be board eligible or board certified in their residency specialty. They must be eligible for a “Physician In Training” (PIT) license to practice in Texas by the beginning of the Fellowship Program. At this time we do not accept H1B visas.

Benefits

• Financial support to attend conferences
• Educational funds
• Laptop
• Additional benefits dependent upon program