January 13, 2014 at 2:54 pm
Published by Stanford Blood Center
By Julie Peachey We need your help. Our inventory for all blood types is critically low, due to increased usage. This past weekend alone, we provided blood for five patients, including two for aortic aneurisms. We are now rationing our...
October 2, 2013 at 5:32 pm
Published by Stanford Blood Center
By Dayna Kerecman Myers Although flu shots have just arrived at some pharmacies, we are already receiving lots of sick cancellations from blood donors. With the onslaught of the flu season every year, we also receive a lot of questions...
September 5, 2013 at 2:41 pm
Published by Stanford Blood Center
By Chris Gonzalez, M.D., Assistant Medical Director, Stanford Blood Center Eating a healthy diet is important for anyone, especially blood donors. But we want to make sure blood donors know that diet alone may not replace all the iron lost...
August 31, 2013 at 5:49 am
Published by Dayna Myers, Contributor
As our regular donors know, blood centers always worry about having enough blood donors in the summer. At Stanford Blood Center, summer means calling our donors more frequently due to the increase in accidents, an uptick in scheduled surgeries, and...
July 30, 2013 at 7:57 am
Published by Stanford Blood Center
By Billie Rubin, reporting from the labs of Stanford Blood Center According to the Coalition for Plasma Science, “Plasma is often called the ‘Fourth State of Matter’, the other three being solid, liquid and gas. A plasma is a distinct...
July 10, 2013 at 2:46 pm
Published by Stanford Blood Center
Your Rh status (positive or negative) is determined by an antigen found on your red blood cells (RBCs). Being Rh-positive or Rh-negative means that either you have the Rhesus D antigen on your RBCs or you don’t. Rh status is...
May 10, 2013 at 2:25 pm
Published by Stanford Blood Center
In January of this year, we discontinued the automated procedure that collected one unit of red blood cells and two units of plasma using the Alyx machine. You may have heard us refer...
May 2, 2013 at 9:00 am
Published by Stanford Blood Center
Special report from the Stanford Medicine Magazine
"Blood is a very special juice."
Goethe didn't know the half of it when he penned this line for Mephisto more than 200 years ago.
In those days people believed blood held mystical qualities and was a potent life force. No wonder Mephisto wants the contract for Faust's soul signed in this "special juice."
October 9, 2012 at 11:27 am
Published by Stanford Blood Center
By Tim Donald, Contributing Writer, American Association of Blood Banks
Roxanne and Mark decide to donate blood. While they are sitting together in an open waiting room, a nurse asks Roxanne questions about her sexual history and number of partners loud enough for all to hear. They are told their blood will be tested to see whether it is "clean" enough to be used. They spend a sitcom eternity waiting anxiously for the results to learn whether they have any sexually transmitted diseases, or STDs. In the end, someone from the clinic calls each partner to tell them that they do not have STDs. (Source: Whitney, Season 1, Episode 12, "Faking It")
September 5, 2012 at 4:19 pm
Published by Stanford Blood Center
A message from Dr. Susan Galel, Director of Clinical Operations, Stanford Blood Center
If you are one of our dedicated platelet pheresis donors, you know that we keep careful records of how much you donate and how oftenin the familiar Annual Donor Records tucked in your chart. It is our responsibility to ensure that your donation frequency is safe for you. Before each of your donations, we tally all of your visits, red blood cell losses and plasma losses for the 12 months prior to that donation, to be sure that you will not exceed any of the safety limits.
