BLOODLESS MEDICINE and SURGERY
The Growing Demand

AWAKE! discussed the benefits of bloodless medicine and surgery with four experts in the field.

Besides patients who for religious reasons refuse blood transfusions, who else are showing interest in bloodless medicine?

Dr. Spahn: In our center those requesting bloodless medicine are usually extremely well-informed patients.

Dr. Shander: In 1998 the number of patients who refused blood for personal reasons exceeded the number of patients who refused blood for religious reasons.

Dr. Boyd: There are, for example, patients with cancer. It has been shown many times that if they don't receive blood, they progress better and they don't have as much recurrence of the disease.

Dr. Spahn: We often treat university professors and their families without using blood. Even the surgeons request that we avoid transfusions! One surgeon, for example, came to us about his wife, who needed an operation. He said: "Just make sure of one thing—that she does not get a blood transfusion!"

Dr. Shander: Members of my anesthesia department said: 'These patients who are not getting blood are doing just as well and maybe even better. Why do we have to have two standards of care? If this is the best care, we should apply it to everybody.' So now we are looking for bloodless medicine to become the standard of care.

Mr. Earnshaw: It just so happens that bloodless surgery is particularly relevant to Jehovah's Witnesses. However, this is how we want to treat everybody.

Is the bloodless approach more expensive or less expensive?

Mr. Earnshaw: This is cost saving.

Dr. Shander: There is a 25-percent reduction of cost with bloodless medicine.

Dr. Boyd: If only for that reason, we should use it.

How far have we advanced in the use of bloodless medical management?

Dr. Boyd: I think it's very progressive. It's by no means at an end. Each time we turn around, we find some good new reason not to use blood.