Bloody Minded

Red cells. White cells. Platelets. Plasma. Proteins. By your powers combined I am Captain… Whole Blood? Wouldn’t it be so much easier if we could work with each of these blood components individually. After all, we have to get them in a bag to donate to people. Before we swear off transfusion for the time being, join the Bloody Minded Crew as we learn the get back to basics of the apheresis machin...

Join our visiting expert Dr Eoghan Molloy - Multitalented transfusion medicine specialist and consultant haematologist at Cork University Hospital to teach us how to cross the ABO Rubicon and provide transfusion support in ABO mismatched transplantation. Visit the lab and see what happens to the forward and reverse group when you're in the middle of changing groups. Brush up on your major, mi...

FOUR Antibodies. THREE Animals. TWO Crying Haem Registrars. ONE TEST - The MAIPA. Actually maybe more than two crying haem registrars. How many antibodies are too many antibodies to have inside a lab test? One? That’s just a DAT. Two? A mere sandwich ELISA. But the Monoclonal Antibody Immobilisation of Platelet Antigens (MAIPA) - that’s not just three but FOUR separate antibodies in the same test....

Have you ever looked at your wallet after a big night out and seen that all your dollars have been conjugated to alloantibodies and phagocytosed by macrophages? Then you know what it’s like to transfuse a platelet refractory patient! Join us as we take a tour of platelet refractoriness and do our best to find some HLA-matched dollars for rent this week. Timestamps 00:52 - Bashar lives near a nucle...

Has this season been too simple? Want to up the difficulty? First of all you have issues, but second of all, welcome! It’s time to talk about all the things we don’t tell people about in the wider hospital - rare blood groups, subgroups, laboratory tips, tricks and more on this bumper In The Lab episode.  Timestamps: 0:52 - How to get rich quick 3:58 - Episode overview 4:50 - The other blood group...

What’s scarier than picking blood for one patient? Picking blood for TWO patients where one of them is inside the other (or only very recently outside). Obstetrics isn’t immune to the acronym train so join Nick, Cale and Bashar as we talk about HDFN, RhD prophylaxis and that OMG sensation that comes when looking after some of our smallest patients.  Timestamps: 0:58 - Trust me this is worth it 2:3...

IVIG & Rituximab – both involve Antibodies – and both can lead to infusion reactions that you may be called to as a junior doctor. But where do these antibodies even come from? Why are we even giving these treatments? What are you meant to do when called to review the patient? Head back to the wards, get your cheese ready and welcome back consultant haematologist Dr Alison Chandler to the pod...

Keen to augment your blood transfusion game but confused as to when, where and why? Join the Bloody Minded boffins as we cover all the major modifications to blood products you can order. More importantly, why you should and sometimes shouldn't bother ordering them. Have a sensible conversation with your blood bank after you listen to this episode. Timestamps: 00:58 - How the blood bank actua...

Perfectly balanced, as all things should be. All that blood doesn’t just arrive when you snap your fingers together. The REALITY is you need the TIME and SPACE to thaw that frozen plasma and the strength of MIND to keep all the components in the right ratios. Only the chosen few with the POWER of transfusion medicine and the SOUL of the laboratory can direct the most immense of transfusions - the...

It’s an early trip to the lab this season to explore exactly how we safely match the blood in the bank to the patient on the ward. Follow your trusty hand-labelled group-and-hold tube as we unpack what actually goes into blood grouping, antibody screening and the final hurdle, the crossmatch! Timestamps 0:52 - Nick lives in squalor, surprising nobody 2:56 - The Group 4:22 - The Forward Group 6:53...

We’re back again to answer all of your questions- what’s exactly is a "unit" of blood and how do we go about giving it? What on earth is the difference between FFP and ELP and cryodepleted plasma? And what do each of them sound like, if you were to interpret them via a completely unnecessary collection of household objects? As always, we’ve got you covered. Timestamps: 00:55 - Bashar&apo...

We’ve been out of line with the rest of #FOAM #MedEd podcasts for the longest time. Forget that haematology stuff, it’s time to talk about RESUS. Break out your adrenaline, it’s time to crack some chests and… wait what? You meant Rhesus ? With an H? Oh right… okay. Put down those trauma shears as the only thing we’ll be cracking open are the ISBT Red Cell Immunogenetics guidelines. Join the Bloody...

Do you fear – The Power of Blood? Have you been warned – You can’t Hurry Blood? Today we tackle all the ways Blood (and love) can go wrong. . . and how to manage it on the wards. Too cryptic? Join Bloody Minded's own consultant haematologist Dr Alison Chandler and the rest of the Bloody Minded Crew as we cover the many and varied reactions patients can have when you try and fix that haemoglob...

Myeloma beware, it's time to bring out the big guns. We are incredibly thankful to be joined by a peak predator of plasma cells, Dr. Christian Bryant. He is a consultant Haematologist at RPA in Sydney, has a PhD on the immunology of myeloma and is driven by a passion to improve the treatment and understanding of all things myeloma. TIMESTAMPS 2:18 - Intro to Christian Bryant 3:05 - Why Haemat...

Ferritin keeps climbing and you’re getting jumpy? Did you consult Haem and then they were bedside 5 minutes later? Ever had to donate your own blood to test the patient for something? Join Nick, Cale and Bashar as we unpack a very special bonus episode on another deadly TLA, HLH. TIMESTAMPS 3:24 - History of HLH 5:26 - What is a histiocyte? 7:44 - How do you turn *off* an immune response? 8:52 - H...

Thankfully, it's time for an actual expert to join us again on Bloody Minded! We are thrilled to be sitting down and chatting with A/Prof. Tracy King , Myeloma CNC from RPA Hospital in Sydney, Co-Founder and past president of the HSANZ Nursing Group. From convenient treatment schedulers to the side effects we should be thinking more about to many ideas to improve clinical practice, this is a...

All that glitters isn’t gold, and all that paraproteins isn’t myeloma. But if we’re not going to blame myeloma, then what else might be responsible? Hold on to your M-Spikes as we the Bloody Minded Team dive into the weird and wonderful world of paraproteins causing havoc in patients without myeloma. This episode isn’t for the faint of blood so get ready for an advanced look at paraproteins and ta...

Its time to hit the hot girl summer of haematology (we're in Australia after all) but also the hot boy winter and Autumn and Spring. Because our patients are hot all year round and sadly all night shift and possibly all throughout your ward round.    Welcome to our next On The Wards episode looking at fevers in the haematology patient with a focus on the management of febrile neutropenia. The...

Can’t get enough of obscure haematological lab chat, can you? Well we’ve got good news for you! Join us today as we delve even deeper into the arcane depths of flow cytometry, mass spectrometry and cytogenetics as they apply to myeloma. We promise we didn’t just make these words up. 02:23 - Flow cytometry: overview 04:01 - The flow cytometer: practical aspects 09:01 - How we interpret flow 11:44 -...

Thought you were free of myeloma acronyms? Don’t be ridiculous - this is the haematology lab! We were born in the acronyms, moulded by them. We didn’t see a complete word until advanced training and even then it was nothing but BLINDING. Your lab tests betray you because they belong to us… but in this episode we’ll let you in on some secrets. Join Nick, Cale and Bashar in the haematology (and clos...

MGUS and Myeloma too simple for your tastes? Do you like vague presentations and biopsying many tissues in a sometimes wild goose chase? Why does Congo have all the birefringent apples? Go ' AA aah ' as we TTR y to unpack AL l the problems that come with that most protean of disease - Systemic Amyloidosis! Timestamps 3:04 - Pathophysiology of Amyloid 6:52 - All The Subtypes of Amyloid 7:...

RVd, KTd, CyBorD, DVd, EloRd - Looks like the cat got on the keyboard. Oh wait, this is just the myeloma regimens in day therapy today.  Come on a journey as we attempt (mostly successfully) to avoid drug trade names! Let go of your proteasome inhibitions, phenotype your red cells and let us modulate your understanding of what it is to treat myeloma with an alphabet soups worth of drugs. We sincer...

== I do not like blue eggs and ham, I do not like them, Sam I Am. They crowd and clump, they grow too fast, Causing troubles that can last. They make my bones feel weak and sore, And through my kidneys they gnaw! I do not like blue eggs, you see, They're signs of something wrong with me. == Timestamps 3:35 - Recap of MGUS + smouldering myeloma 4:42 - Clinical case - Mr. Peter Rotein 8:15 - Wh...

Ordered something you shouldn’t have and accidentally found a paraprotein again? Shame on you, but now you have to do something with it. Maybe you were genuinely suspicious for myeloma. If incidentally discovered lab findings are leaving you smouldering, this is the episode for you!  Join Nick, Cale and Bashar as they chat about the spectrum of plasma cell dyscrasias, and cover the precursor condi...

A is for Antibody. B is for B-cell. C is for Cryoglobul… wait no we’ve covered that already. If you struggle to tell your thymus from an isthmus, can’t see the humour in humoural immunity and think a bursa is just some fancy elbow cushion then THIS is the episode for you. Join the Bloody Minded Crew as they dust off their undergraduate immunology degrees, get back to the classroom and cover the fo...