I made a decision to volunteer at Canadian Blood Services for a variety of reasons.
When I was young, my mother volunteered at what was then the Red Cross's mobile clinics, often in our local church parish basements. Once I retired, it was an easy decision to continue my mother's volunteer legacy.
My earliest career was as a Medical Laboratory Technologist, and although I worked primarily in Haematology I also did my share of memorable weekend shifts in the Blood Transfusion Lab (the "Blood Bank"). Later in my career, I was a Clinical Application Specialist working on hospital information systems. Because of my laboratory background, it was my primary role to build all of the laboratory results and the physician orders for those labs into the system. It became my challenge to convert what was then a paper-based request for Intravenous Immune Globulin into the system. The paper-based system was rigid, because there wasn't enough IVIG to go around and doctors were forced to explain in detail (the diagnosis, the dose, etc.) why their patient needed IVIG. The list of diagnoses grew as quickly as we could make the changes, but I like to believe that the IVIG orders built into the system were far better than the paper one! It forced the physicians to be very careful about their request.
So, when I was assigned to volunteer at the Plasma Donation Centre in Brampton 2 1/2 years ago, it felt like my career had come full circle. I remember long nights in the Blood Bank, thawing plasma, as well as building a hospital system that could allow doctors to order plasma and IVIG 'smartly' for their patients. Now, as a volunteer, I am offering donors juice and snacks and blankets and asking them about their WHY for donating plasma. I hear so many wonderful stories.
I also donate plasma at Brampton. I was exchange-transfused shortly after birth, am a 22 1/2 year cancer survivor and my son received blood during heart surgery when he was just 7 weeks old. I have so many reasons to give back.
