Transfusion Medicine

Cees Th. Smit Sibinga

ID Consulting, Zuidhorn, The Netherlands

Transfusion Medicine is a bridging science, spanning the evidence-based practice at the bedside with the social sciences in the community.
    Transfusion Medicine starts at the bedside. Surprisingly, only recently that has become rediscovered with the development of ‘patient blood management’ and ‘patient centered’ approaches to allow the growth of an optimal and rational patient care through supportive hemotherapy – safe and effective, affordable and accessible.¹
    Where transfusion of blood found its origin in the need of a patient, it has drifted away for a long period of time from the bedside and has been dominated for almost a century by laboratory sciences. At least the first ten editions of the famous and well reputed textbook Mollison’s Blood Transfusion in Clinical Medicine contained only a fraction on the actual bedside practice of transfusion medicine and did not focus at all on patient blood management.²
    This journal will focus on all aspects of the transfusion chain that immediately relate to the bedside practice and clinical use of blood and its components, and plasma derivatives as integral elements of a human transplant tissue. That includes legal and regulatory aspects, medical, ethical and cultural aspects, pure science and pathophysiology of disease and the impact of transfusion of blood, as well as aspects of the epidemiology of blood transfusion and clinical indications, and cost-effectiveness. Education through timely and continued transfer of up to date knowledge and the application of knowledge in clinical practice to develop and maintain clinical skills and competence, with the extension of current educational approaches through e-learning and accessible ‘apps’ will be given a prominent place.