Grateful in the Face of Challenge
| Tweet |
By Billie Rubin, Hemoglobin’s Catabolic Cousin, reporting from the labs of Stanford Blood Center
It looks like our O+, O-, A+, and A- RBCs are going out to our hospitals at blinding speeds these days. When many of these blood types are at or near the critical levels in our inventory, everyone’s work here at SBC is cut out for them. Finding and scheduling donors, setting up mobile blood drives, drawing the blood, testing it in the lab, and processing it for transfusion has our little hands working as fast as they can go.
We always have to stay ahead of the next emergency because when it happens, the blood has to be there. No matter what. But we feel grateful to be in a place with a wonderful infrastructure to face the challenge. From a community of volunteer donors, to state of the art technology for procuring, processing and testing blood, to a reliable and safe emphasis on the quality of our products. Think of how many countries do not have this, and be thankful that you are a part of this little miracle that happens every day.