AuntiS

I must admit that makes me nervous Teristella.

Congrats!!!  I think many of us have our own version of Malcom in our mind 🤓

I think you would be sorely disappointed.  

I will be retiring on August 9 and wanted to tell everyone that the forum has been a great source of information (and amusement at times).  I have spent time reading Malcolm's posts trying to imagine what he sounds like (just love a British accent).  Thanks for keeping the forum a place where we can all learn from each other

Congratulations!  Very well deserved!

I am enormously honoured to announce that I am going to be awarded the Gold Medal of the British Blood Transfusion Society at their Annual Scientific Meeting in Brighton this year.  It is awarded to an individual for their exceptional and long standing services to the Society and to the practice of blood transfusion in the UK.  Sorry if this sounds egocentric, but I am very excited.

Thanks for the replies.
I thought maybe there was a new practice being adopted out there where you didn't have to rule out other antibodies, just confirm Anti-D in Moms having received Rhig. 
Heard rumblings in the greater Toronto area.
Thanks
Richard

Does the MTS gel card you typically use contain polyspecific antiglobulin reagent (anti-IgG + anti-complement)  or does it just contain anti-IgG ? I think most users are using anti-IgG cards, and if that is the case, they're already dealing with the "Is it possible to miss a complement binding IgM antibody early on by using IgG only." issue.

Poly Specific AHG is less expensive.
 

I agree with NicolePCanada - I would have made a special effort to search you out and introduce myself Malcom  
Good conference overall.  More research based than conferences I'm used to going to (I've been to CSTM and AABB in the past), but really interesting.
However, I'm concerned that the rest of the world thinks Canadians eat cookies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner .  
sandra

I agree with NicolePCanada - I would have made a special effort to search you out and introduce myself Malcom  
Good conference overall.  More research based than conferences I'm used to going to (I've been to CSTM and AABB in the past), but really interesting.
However, I'm concerned that the rest of the world thinks Canadians eat cookies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner .  
sandra

I agree with NicolePCanada - I would have made a special effort to search you out and introduce myself Malcom  
Good conference overall.  More research based than conferences I'm used to going to (I've been to CSTM and AABB in the past), but really interesting.
However, I'm concerned that the rest of the world thinks Canadians eat cookies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner .  
sandra

And if you were going to be there Malcolm, I would have changed my plans around and driven 4 hrs to Toronto, just for the opportunity to shake your hand and the ability to say, "I met Malcolm Needs"

ISBT starts tomorrow in Toronto!  For anyone attending, WELCOME TO CANADA!

Same in Canada. 4 hours from when it leaves the lab.

Prof. Theirry Burnouf, Prof. Axel Seltsam, Sue Johnson and some English guy ay Cressier in 2015.

Probably not helpful, but there is not a shred of scientific or clinical evidence for the efficacy and safety of this time limit.  Totally expert opinion based upon a group of white haired males (like me) sitting around a table eating tuna fish sandwiches 60 years ago :).  We document such stuff for the two regulatory agencies and two accreditation groups we are inspected by.  How's that for efficiency? Four inspections.

People can be quite creative when it comes to finding an "easier" way to do their job.  That is one of the reasons I have always been a firm believer that complicating a process never makes it better or safer.  I know the rational behind the 2 types being required but I personally never bought into it being a practical solution the potential problems it is trying to solve because of the many more problems is has seemed to cause for the staff resulting in all the work arounds they manage to come up with.  For it to really work you would have to have 2 separate draws performed by two different people at different times.  (Both phlebotomists in the room drawing one immediately after the other defeats the purpose.) Then you need to have two different techs perform the testing, one for each sample.  This would be impossible in many smaller facilities, especially on evening and night shifts.  Of course the requirement came from people based in large, well staffed facilities.  I'm starting to ramble so I'll stop here for now.
I have one question, in the past the AABB rule was written that you had to have 2 sets of test results, the one you are currently performing and one on file to compare the current one to and if you did not have one on file then you needed the second test performed prior to issuing RBCs.    It that still the case?

As long as idiots exist in the world, they will thwart any solid plan we put in place to mitigate their recklessness.

Quite a few, but not all, hospitals in the UK use this method.  It is fairly fool proof, but, sadly, not entirely idiot proof.

We allow specimens collected through SunQuest Collection Manager to be used as the single specimen, which we will then type two times.
Of course there can be many workarounds for other techniques.  Double signatures - just collect the specimen and ask a friend to sign it.  Specimens collected at different times - collect two at the same time - put different times on them.
I heard of a local facility that the second tube was coded and provided by the blood bank.  That sounded fairly fool proof. 
 

Testing the same blood sample twice will not detect WBIT.  That is why we draw a second blood sample from a different venipuncture from patients who initially type not group O.  We are not AABB accredited.

In the UK, where this "rule" originated (I think!), our Guidelines do not "allow" the grouping of the same sample twice (what is the point of that, if the sample was taken from the wrong patient in the first place?  It would mean that, for example, the sample would be grouped twice as group A, and would be found to be serologically compatible with group A units, even if the patient was actually group O - and so, dead!).  We have to have two samples taken at different times (preferentially by a different person).
Of course, we would certainly NOT stop blood being given in a situation where the patient is bleeding to death - but we WOULD only give group O blood until the second sample is received and typed (and the Rh type would depend upon sex and age) wherever we can (obviously, in the case of a major incident, we may have to modify this, but the Guidelines allow for such a situation).
A VERY intelligent gentleman (Dr. Brian McClelland MB, ChB, ND Linden, FRCP(E), FRCPath), former Consultant Haematologist to the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service, Edinburgh, UK) once wrote, "Transfusion has risks, but bleeding to death is fatal."

Reply from Professor Stan Urbaniak.
"Hi Malcolm. This does indeed sound like nonsense. The only work I know of trying to reduce the anti-D titre in women was using oral RhD rbc extract (Biermé et al) and that was shown to useless in a clinical trial. Best wishes Stan - from sunny Mallorca!"

I would get back to God (Oh, sorry, I meant the OB) and get him to give the reference.
With all the work done by Clarke, Mollison, and the more recent work Urbaniak, all three of whom were professors for good reason, and all three of whose work showed this to be a waste of time, money etc, I have grave doubts that such a citation, by a reliable author/authors, exists (but I will try to contact Stan, because, if he doesn't know, I doubt if anyone else will, just in case).