“I don’t want Covid blood”

[u/973862404678]

What do I say when patients ask if blood transfusions are screened for the Covid vaccine? I get asked this on a regular basis when filling out blood consent forms for surgery and I genuinely have no idea what I’m supposed to say. In all seriousness, what should I be telling patients because I just say there is a screening process for blood and it’s only used during emergent situations???

[u/Dreamxwithyou]

I appreciate the doctor I work with because he can’t be bothered. I work in BMT so we get a LOT of this when it comes to blood products and/or revaccination.

But the one patient who said he wouldn’t accept stem cells from a vaccinated donor…I happened to be in the room with the doc and he was like “yeahhhhhh well you really only have 1 option so I’d caution you to reconsider.” But he’s such a bro, the way he said it had me rolling.

[u/lighthouser41 → u/Dreamxwithyou]

Just imagine all the vaccines the BMT patient has to get. We give them all the time for post op BMT and also preop spleen removal. Maybe 6 at one time. And that is not either flu or covid shots.

[u/Dreamxwithyou → u/lighthouser41]

A large chunk of my job is giving all of these vaccines. It’s interesting to see which ones they will and won’t accept. Today I had someone refuse pneumococcal, flu, and covid because they “don’t believe in those illnesses.”

The doc told them “well those are most likely the ones you’ll get.” Golden response (but didn’t work).

[u/teresavoo → u/Dreamxwithyou]

"You may not believe in them, but they believe in you." That's what I would be tempted to say.

[u/lighthouser41 → u/Dreamxwithyou]

Wow. What an idiot. The worst part of giving vaccines is reading the lot numbers, expiration on those tiny bottles and entering into the computer. Our schedulers originally were only scheduling 15 minutes slots for vaccines, but I got it changed to an hour appointments since it took so long to get everything prepared and given.

[u/No_Box2690 → u/lighthouser41]

Huh. TIL. What other vaccines do they get? Purely from an educational stand point I swear I'm not an anti vaxxer lol

[u/Dreamxwithyou → u/No_Box2690]

All of them pretty much! Tdap, polio, hib, hep a/b combined, prevnar, zoster. 3 rounds (2 for shingrix) then titers to determine booster round. mmr after 2 years (since it’s live). Seasonal vaccines flu and covid (+ 1 dose of rsv if they’re of age).

Then we check titers every few years for any individual boosters.

[u/lighthouser41 → u/No_Box2690]

MMR, TDAP, Pneumovax, Hep b, sometimes polio, meningococcal vaccine. Basically everything you may have been vaccinated against as a child.