Blood Banking/Transfusion Medicine Fellowship

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This 12-month fellowship is designed to prepare individuals for a career in blood banking/ transfusion medicine at an academic medical center, a community blood center, or a private practice setting where the individual will be responsible for managing a transfusion service and/or donor center. The fellowship provides primary training at The Children's Hospital of Colorado and the University of Colorado Hospital, two large referral centers for pediatric and adult medicine, respectively, and Vitalant (formerly Bonfils) Blood Center, a community blood center that is the major blood supplier for the state of Colorado. Additional training is done at the Veterans' Administration Medical Center, ClinImmune Labs, (a reference immunology laboratory), and Allosource, (a large tissue bank). Training encompasses all aspects of blood banking and transfusion medicine, including donor testing, blood processing, transfusion consultation, immunohematology reference services, therapeutic and donor apheresis, coagulation, tissue typing, peripheral blood stem cell collection, and blood bank management. More than 52,000 blood products are transfused at the primary fellowship hospitals (including 34,300 red blood cells and 10,000 platelets). The Children’s Hospital has in-house molecular testing and its own donor center; they perform about 500 apheresis procedures each year, including plasma exchanges. The University Hospital performs nearly 1500 apheresis procedures each year, excluding plasma exchanges. Both hospitals collect immune effector cells and participate in clinical trials for new therapeutic interventions. The community blood center is a part of the Vitalant blood center network and collects more than 165,000 units of red blood cells annually, serves nearly 200 healthcare facilities in Colorado and beyond, and offers a variety of services including the Colorado Marrow Donor Program. It is also one of the sites of the Vitalant Research Institute and the site of the Vitalant Innovation Center. The fellow is encouraged to participate in research projects leading to presentation at national meetings and publication. The fellow is also responsible for education of residents and medical students.