Tagreed Alkaltham: From Donor to Bedside – The Courage Behind Safe Transfusion Practice
Tagreed Alkaltham, Transfusion Medicine Lab Supervisor at KSMC, shared a post on LinkedIn:
”From Donor to Bedside: Courage to Uphold Policy Protects Every Step.
In transfusion medicine,
- Policies are not limited to one moment.
- They begin long before a patient needs blood. And they continue long after it is issued.
From donor selection to blood collection.
From infectious disease screening to grouping and cross-matching.
From storage conditions to transport.
From verification to final administration at the bedside.
- Every step is written.
- Every step is intentional.
- Every step exists to protect patients.
But policies alone do not ensure safety.
Courage does.
Because courage is tested in two directions:
1. Internal Discipline; Inside the Blood Bank:
Courage is required to follow the full process from donation to issuance.
- To resist skipping a verification step because the shift is long.
- To repeat a test because something feels inconsistent.
- To reject a unit when quality is questionable.
- To document completely, even when no one is watching.
- And to resist external pressure to decline unnecessary urgency, to refuse inappropriate activation, and to stand firm when physicians push for shortcuts.
Safety is rarely compromised by dramatic failure.
It is compromised by the quiet normalization of shortcuts in any step from donor eligibility to post-transfusion reaction workup.
Every policy protects the patient we may never meet.
2. External Pressure; On the Clinical Side:
Courage is also required before blood is even requested.
- To assess whether transfusion is truly indicated.
- To optimize alternatives when appropriate.
- To exhaust other options when possible.
- To request the correct number of units based on clinical need, not assumption.
- To avoid unnecessary urgency.
- To avoid activating Massive Transfusion Protocol (MTP) without true criteria.
Because every request affects more than one patient.
Blood is not infinite. Inventory is shared.
Activation is a system-level decision.
Urgency does not replace standards.
And pressure does not override protocol.
Policies from A to Z mean nothing without the courage to uphold them at every letter.
From donor chair to patient bedside.
From laboratory bench to clinical judgment.
Clinical teams and laboratory teams are not separate systems.
We are one safety chain.
And that chain is only as strong as our willingness to protect policy even when it is inconvenient.
Because when we protect policy, we protect patients.”
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