A message from our administrator
As we are getting settled into 2014, I’d like to take a moment to thank our staff, volunteers, and blood donors for a wonderful past year. 2013 was an extremely busy year, but also a very productive one. Because...
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Points from the heart
By Deanna Bolio Back by popular demand, SBC donors are once again able to donate their points to Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital or to the Safe Blood Africa program. First available in 2012, these charitable options were so popular with...
A new look for our website
By Julie Peachey The next time you visit our website, you may notice we’ve redesigned things a bit. Our home page is cleaner, featuring special messages for our donors at the forefront in our new rotating banner. Our goal is...
Critical Blood Shortage: All Types Needed
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...
Blood donation and iron
Please note, there may be more current information available related to iron and blood donation. Visit our Iron and Blood Donation page for more. Eating a healthy diet is important for anyone, especially blood donors. But we want to make sure...
Dog days for canine donors
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...
Pondering plasma
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...
A New Way to Donate Plasma
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. Later this spring, we will transition...
Vital fluid: What We Know About Blood
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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."
Transfusion Medicine’s Portrayal on Television
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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")