Professional education highlights from CSTM 2025

Working with subject matter experts, Canadian Blood Services supports the development and delivery of initiatives that address the educational needs of the transfusion medicine community and supports best practices in clinical care.  Several of these initiatives were recently showcased at the annual Canadian Society for Transfusion Medicine (CSTM) conference, held in St. John’s last month.

In this blog, Canadian Blood Services knowledge broker, Kaylee Brooks, recaps key takeaways about the impact of these initiatives after visiting the poster session at CSTM.  

Empowering the transfusion medicine community through educational initiatives: The impact of national education programs in Canada 

The Transfusion Medicine Physician Trainee program has been a longstanding educational program at Canadian Blood Services designed to train specialists in transfusion medicine. It includes rotations through several departments in a blood centre, an annual retreat, and weekly didactic seminars (Learn.Transfusion Seminar Series). Over the years, this program has expanded to include additional educational arms for medical residents, blood suppliers, nurses, laboratory professionals, and more.  

The success of this program and its various educational arms was recently showcased in a poster authored by the late Julia Gilmore and presented at CSTM 2025. The poster, titled “Empowering the transfusion medicine community: The impact of national education”, highlighted that the Physician Trainee program has supported 58 trainees since 1995 and boasts a 95% hiring rate for graduates into transfusion-related positions. In 2021, the program expanded to include an arm for medical residents, launching the National Medical Resident Rotation. This program was designed to replace blood operator site-specific rotations with a virtual rotation. Its curriculum covers blood centre content delivered by experts from across Canada with 84 participants having completed the rotation since its inception.  

“Training the next generation of transfusion medicine physicians in Canada is a critical part of ensuring Canada remains at the forefront of transfusion medicine best practices, research and discovery” – Dr. Matthew Yan.

To fulfill the seminar component of the Transfusion Medicine Physician Trainee program, the Learn.Transfusion Seminar Series was developed in 2007 and was later opened to anyone with an interest in transfusion medicine. This seminar series averages 26 sessions per series, 4500 attendees per year, and reaches a large international audience through its online delivery.  

Additionally, a similar seminar series was recently launched in 2024 to address an identified need for education in the emerging field of genomics.  The Genomics Transfusion Rounds has completed four sessions to date, with its online format reaching approximately 200 live attendees per session and a large international audience. 

This poster emphasized the large reach and impact that this national education program has in the transfusion medicine community both within and outside of Canada. It also honours and celebrates the contributions made to the transfusion community by the late Julia Gilmore. 

• To learn more about upcoming dates for both the Learn.Transfusion and Genomics Transfusion Rounds, keep an eye on the Profedu.ca events page! 

Supporting the rollout of pathogen-reduced platelets in Canada 

The world of transfusion medicine is ever-changing, with advances in products and processes to continually improve the safety of the blood system in Canada. To assist health-care professionals with this fast-paced world, Canadian Blood Services works with content experts to develop educational materials to support the implementation of these new products and processes.  

This year at CSTM, Canadian Blood Services medical officer, Dr. Michelle (Mickey) Zeller shared an update on the uptake of a suite of educational resources designed to support the implementation of pathogen-reduced platelets.  

Resources to support this new product rollout included a chapter in the well-known Clinical Guide to Transfusion with a downloadable, one-page summary of Canadian Blood Services’ platelet component inventory, shareable slide decks, and narrated videos. Additionally, two FAQ documents were created to address commonly asked questions about the different types of pathogen-reduced platelet products at Canadian Blood Services; existing resources were also updated to include the new products. All resources are available in French and English on the Profedu.ca website.  

Key statistics from data collected between July 2023 and December 2024 noted in the poster include:  

• Chapter 19, Pathogen-reduced platelets, has been viewed more than 9,000 times by more than 5, 000 unique users.  
• The additional resources have been downloaded over 330 times in total.   
• Combined, the FAQ pages have more than 3, 000 page views from users in Canada, United States, France, Hong Kong, and Algeria.  
  • FAQ: Information for health professionals on pathogen-reduced platelets (PPPT) 
  • FAQ: Information for health professionals on apheresis platelet psoralen-treated (APPT) and untreated apheresis platelet in PAS-E 
• The Visual Inspection Tool was updated to include images of pathogen-reduced platelet products, totaling 1,000 views since the update. 

Supporting the shift to solvent detergent plasma in Canada 

In March 2023, hospitals began to transition the majority of their orders of plasma—a blood component that contains proteins, clotting factors and antibodies—to a different type of plasma known as solvent detergent plasma or ‘S/D plasma’. The name comes from the technology used to produce the plasma using a pathogen-inactivation method.  

To assist with this transition, a suite of resources including a summary article, FAQ document, one-page clinical summary, slide decks, and narrated videos were created and translated. Canadian Blood Services medical director and special advisor, Dr. Kathryn Webert, presented the impact of these educational resources in a poster at CSTM.  

Key statistics from data collected between July 2023 and December 2024 noted in the poster include:  

• The S/D plasma summary article was viewed 3, 549 times in English and French by more than 2400 users.  
• The S/D plasma FAQ page was viewed 2, 565 times in English and French by users both within and outside of Canada.  

“It was a pleasure and privilege to work with a multidisciplinary team from across many Canadian Blood Services departments to craft these initiatives. Development and dissemination of educational resources were the result of significant time, expertise and energy of many, and we are thrilled with the uptake and positive feedback from colleagues across Canada!” –Dr. Michelle (Mickey) Zeller.

Educational materials and programs created by Canadian Blood Services in partnership with content experts reach a wide audience both within and outside of Canada to promote best practices in transfusion medicine.

It was a pleasure to see the impacts of these resources and programs showcased at CSTM 2025. Congratulations to all the authors of these posters for the excellent work they represent! 

Canadian Blood Services – Driving world-class innovation  

Through discovery, development and applied research, Canadian Blood Services drives world-class innovation in blood transfusion, cellular therapy and transplantation—bringing clarity and insight to an increasingly complex healthcare future. Our dedicated research team and extended network of partners engage in exploratory and applied research to create new knowledge, inform and enhance best practices, contribute to the development of new services and technologies, and build capacity through training and collaboration. Find out more about our research impact.   

The opinions reflected in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Canadian Blood Services nor do they reflect the views of Health Canada or any other funding agency.