A proposal for curriculum content in transfusion medicine and blood banking education in pathology residency programs.

T he fields of blood banking (BB) and transfusion medicine (TM), like other areas of medicine, have evolved into specialties with a diverse array of areas of knowledge. These areas include advances in the detection of pathogens in donated blood, advances in methods to collect and manipulate progenitor cells, advances in blood conservation techniques, and advances in treatments for both the acutely and the chronically ill patient, among many others. As a consequence, the knowledge base that a resident trainee in pathology is expected to master has expanded well beyond the mere understanding of compatibility testing and inventory management. In the past several years, guidance regarding pathology residency training has been published for clinical pathology and anatomic pathology, as well as in some subspecialty areas. Although intended for medical students, an NIH-funded transfusion medicine curriculum initiative also provided a comprehensive overview of areas of knowledge relevant to pathology resident training. A survey of TM fellowships was also performed with implications for residency training, as have recent commentaries regarding the role of physicians in blood centers and hospital transfusion services. There is no document that specifically addresses pathology residency training in BB and/or TM, however, and the current requirements of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) on general competencies in residency training. Recently, the Academy of Clinical Laboratory Physicians and Scientists (ACLPS) and the members of the Children’s Health Initiative through Laboratory Diagnostics (CHILDx) separately produced comprehensive clinical pathology residency training documents of which BB and/or TM was a subsection. As a follow-up to the activities of ACLPS and the new requirements of the ACGME regarding general competencies, a task force was created by the AABB to address the needs for a residency curriculum on this subject. The rotation objectives outlined below for BB and TM were adapted from the subsection on BB and/or TM from the ACLPS document and further expanded. The task force further elaborated on these objectives by including additional guidance on the different needs of the general anatomic pathology– and clinical pathology–trained pathologist, who has either minimal or infrequent supervision of a transfusion service, compared with the specialist whose responsibilities might include directing a blood collection center, a cell therapeutics laboratory, or a high-complexity transfusion service. The task force further designated what each specific rotation ABBREVIATIONS: ACGME = Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education; BB = blood banking; CAP = College of American Pathologists; FACT = Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy; IC = interpersonal and communication skills; JCAHO = Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations; MK = medical knowledge; PC = patient care; PL = practice-based learning and improvement; PR = professionalism; SP = systems-based practice; TM = transfusion medicine.