Webinar Series: Psychological First Aid, Grief and Loss, and Moral Distress in response to COVID-19

Health care professionals in donation and transplantation are invited to attend a series of webinars focusing on psychological first aid, grief and loss, and moral distress, within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. A severe mass event like this pandemic can cause the general public and those affected by COVID-19, including health care workers, to be mentally impacted. Psychological First Aid is an intervention method that can help people in distress during these challenging times. The webinars will be recorded, in case you cannot attend the live events or you experience technical issues. For questions, please contact otdt@blood.ca Part 1: Psychological First Aid during COVID-19 | May 12, 2020 | 4 p.m. – 5 p.m. (ET) Handout Part 2: Grief and Loss during COVID-19 May 19, 2020 | 4 p.m. – 5 p.m. (ET) Handout Part 3: Moral Distress during COVID-19 June 2, 2020 | 4 p.m. – 5 p.m. (ET) Handout 1 Handout 2 Handout 3 Presenters Dr. David Kuhl Dr. David Kuhl is a Professor in the Departments of Family Practice and Urologic Sciences, Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Kuhl graduated with a Masters in Health Sciences (Community Health and Epidemiology) from the University of Toronto in 1981, and received his medical degree from McMaster University in 1985. After completing his training in Family Practice (1987) he worked as a family practitioner and a palliative care physician. In that context he conducted a qualitative study, Exploring Spiritual and Psychological Issues at the End of Life. The study served as the basis for his doctoral dissertation (Interdisciplinary PhD, UBC 1999) for a book, entitled What Dying People Want: Practical Wisdom for the End-of-Life and for the founding of the Centre for Practitioner Renewal at Providence Health Care. Throughout his career David has worked to integrate medicine, psychology and the social sciences as a clinician and a researcher. This is evident in the programs he has founded, namely the Palliative Care Program at St. Paul’s Hospital, the Veterans Transition Program, the Centre for Practitioner Renewal (CPR), and most recently, The Men’s Initiative. His work at the CPR focused on sustaining health care providers in the work place, understanding the effect of being in the presence of suffering and working with health care providers in addressing resilience, communication and healthy relationships in the workplace. While no longer working at the CPR, David continues this work as a consultant to health care teams and services, locally, provincially and nationally. Since the onset of the pandemic, David, along with his colleagues, has been involved in developing a program of support for physicians who are working with those who have experienced the coronavirus. His primary focus is that of a co-founder of The Men’s Initiative, an endeavour that seeks to enhance the integrity and well-being of men for the benefit of families, communities and the globe. Linda MacNutt Linda MacNutt MSW RSW integrates her professional background in nursing and social work working as member of an interdisciplinary consulting team with a focus on collegial, meaningful relationships, resilience and the delivery of compassionate care. Her social work career has seen 34 years work experience in Child Welfare, Mental Health and Health Care in both urban and rural settings. Health Care has been her predominate field of practice involving work with patients and families primarily in the adult specialty areas of Nephrology: Dialysis and Transplant and Cardiology: Transplant and Healthy Heart. Since 2001 the focus of Linda’s work has addressed the care and well being of health care staff in acute and residential care settings. From 2001-2008 she collaboratively developed and coordinated the Cumulative and Critical Incident Stress Management program (CCISM) at Providence Health Care. Linda is a Certified trainer for 1 on 1 Provider Training and for the group Resilience Advantage program developed by the HeartMath Institute in Boulder Creek, USA. She is a member of ICISF and TIR. One of the founding members of the Provincial Disaster Psychosocial Services Program (DPS) Linda is also a council member representing the BC Association of Social Workers. Associated with DPS she co-facilitates DPS Psychological First Aid (PFA) training and may be called upon to respond during disaster events. Dr. Hilary Pearson Dr. Pearson has an MA in Counselling Psychology and interdisciplinary PhD in Curriculum and Instruction from UBC. Hilary worked as a psychotherapist in the Centre for Practitioner Renewal (CPR) at Providence Health Care for 11 years and served as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Practice Medicine at UBC for 7 years. Hilary has broad experience in trauma repair and in alleviating or preventing vicarious traumatic stress, compassion fatigue and moral distress. This includes work with First Nations survivors of residential schools, practitioners involved in residential school healing, physicians, and multi-disciplinary health care teams. As part of a team of interdisciplinary consultants, her current focus is working with health care providers and organizations to enhance vitality, sustainability, and the delivery of relationship centred compassionate care. Dr. Paul Whitehead Paul Whitehead completed his MA and PhD in counselling psychology at the University of BC, and has been a registered psychologist since 2008. He has worked for over 20 years in the field of psychological trauma, vicarious trauma and work-related stress, which has included over 12 years working with individuals, teams and groups of health care providers with the Centre for Practitioner Renewal at Providence Health Care in Vancouver. He is currently an associate clinical professor with the Department of Family Practice at the University of BC, clinical supervisor and case consultant with the BC Society for Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse (BCSMSSA) and national clinical director for the Veterans Transition Network. His current focus is on the use of team and group-oriented approaches to develop resilience and address the impact of work-related stress, vicarious trauma and post-traumatic stress amongst health care providers, first responders and veterans.

Funding awarded to researchers to optimize blood product use

Through the Blood Efficiency Accelerator Program, Canadian Blood Services supports projects that improve the use of blood products. These improvements can be realized at any point from vein to vein, that is from the point of blood collection, through manufacturing, distribution, and storage, to clinical use. Congratulations to the recent Blood Efficiency Accelerator Program recipients: Jason Acker (University of Alberta & Canadian Blood Services) Calvino Cheng (Dalhousie University) Andrew Shih (University of British Columbia) These projects will increase our understanding of how to optimize
April 30, 2020
Transfusion

Funding awarded to research and education innovators

Through the BloodTechNet Award Program, Canadian Blood Services supports the development of innovative educational projects that network the transfusion, cellular therapy and transplantation communities in Canada. Congratulations to the recent BloodTechNet Award Program recipients: Warren Fingrut (University of British Columbia) Eric Wagner (CHU de Québec-Université Laval-CHUL) These projects will deliver educational tools and resources that support the development of skills, knowledge and expertise of health professionals. Warren Fingrut’s project will develop an educational toolkit for
April 2, 2020
Transfusion

A novel microfluidic device to aid in the search for red blood cell “super-storers”

Donated red blood cell units are a vital component of patient care, supporting patients with a wide variety of disorders. These include severe kidney disease, hemoglobin and bleeding disorders, bone marrow failure syndromes and recovery from chemotherapy. Some patients, like those with thalassemia and sickle cell anemia, have a lifelong dependency on blood donations. However, not all blood units are the same, and the benefit they can deliver to a patient can vary from unit to unit. Certain donors have red blood cells that will last in cold storage and in the circulation of a recipient for
March 26, 2020
Transfusion

Fibrinogen replacement products: how do they stack up against each other?

For patients who have cardiac surgery, the risk of severe blood loss is high if they have a condition called acquired hypofibrinogenemia — this means they have an undersupply of an essential blood clotting protein called fibrinogen. For these patients, doctors aim to minimize bleeding by giving them a fibrinogen replacement product to restore clotting factors to normal levels — either cryoprecipitate or fibrinogen concentrate — which restores clotting factors to normal levels. Although both products are used in hospitals around the world, not much is known about how they compare in terms of
March 12, 2020
Transfusion

Why you won’t get COVID-19 from a blood transfusion

COVID-19 is primarily a respiratory virus, with potential to infect the digestive system as well. People can get infected when they inhale or ingest the virus, but not via a blood transfusion. “There is absolutely no evidence of transfusion transmission for COVID-19, or any other coronavirus,” says Dr. Steven Drews, associate director of microbiology at Canadian Blood Services. “This family of respiratory viruses just doesn’t appear to be transfusion-transmitted.” This also applies to other coronaviruses such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS)
March 10, 2020
Transfusion

Lay Science Writing Competition winner: Is TACO best eliminated with Lasix (TACO-BEL)?

On my wedding day, my grandmother was admitted to the hospital for pneumonia. Unfortunately, patients over the age of 50 years old (and especially those over 70 years old), such as my grandmother, have higher needs for support with blood products. Older patients are also more vulnerable to the side effects of transfusion. My husband and I went to get my grandmother’s blessings immediately after getting married. Here, we faced an interesting challenge. I witnessed a fellow physician attempting to get my grandmother’s permission for a blood transfusion. I found myself torn between being a
February 24, 2020
Transfusion

Lay Science Writing Competition winner: A story worth telling

After the success of last year’s inaugural Canadian Blood Services’ Lay Science Writing Competition, we couldn’t wait to do it again! The Centre for Innovation was delighted to once again partner with science communication and research leaders Science Borealis and the Centre for Blood Research at the University of British Columbia to host this competition. This time around, we asked our research trainees to send us “Stories worth telling” in the areas of blood, plasma, stem cells or organs and tissues research. We challenged them to tell us about the people behind the research, the impact of
February 20, 2020
Transfusion

Nominations now open for the 2020 Canadian Blood Services Lifetime Achievement Award

Recipients of the Canadian Blood Services Lifetime Achievement Award are individuals whose landmark contributions are recognized as both extraordinary and world class in the field of transfusion or transplantation medicine, stem cell or cord blood research in Canada and/or abroad. Who can be nominated? To be nominated for the Canadian Blood Services Lifetime Achievement Award, an individual must have contributed significantly to improving the safety and/or quality of blood, blood products, stem cells and/or cord blood or has made noteworthy improvements or advances in transfusion or
February 18, 2020
Organs and tissues
Transfusion

Highlights from the 2019 Critical Care Canada Forum

The 2019 Critical Care Canada Forum (CCCF) took place in Toronto Nov. 10-13. This year marked the fifth annual Deceased Organ Donation Symposium, a two-day symposium held during CCCF that promotes scientific research and discussion about organ donation and transplantation and its application to critical care practice. Presented by Canadian Blood Services, Trillium Gift of Life and the Canadian Donation and Transplantation Research Program, this year’s event did not disappoint. Presentations from this session were recorded and can be found on Canadian Blood Services’ professional education
February 6, 2020
Organs and tissues
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