The transfusion medicine specialist as a coagulation consultant: a new variant of therapeutic pathology

Practitioners in transfusion medicine, long involved in consultations emphasizing clinical issues such as alloantibody reporting and transfusion reaction evaluation, have more recently been engaged as experts and consultants in hemostasis and coagulation. Given the growing complexity in laboratory coagulation testing and its interpretation, the shortage of specialists in this arena, and the increasing costs associated with patient management, we believe that there are vital clinical roles in hemostasis that can be readily fulfilled by transfusion medicine practitioners. The aim of this article is to briefly outline three possible models by which transfusion medicine practitioners can begin to integrate coagulation consultation into their regular clinical practice. Moreover, we discuss a novel curriculum that we are developing at our institution to more fully train transfusion medicine fellows in the fields of hemostasis and thrombosis.