Academy
Transfusion Camp Rwanda 2024
Françoise Nizeyimana
University of Rwanda, Rwanda
Teresa Skelton
University of British Columbia, Canada
Stephen Okelo
Maseno University School of Medicine, Kisumu, Kenya
The annual Transfusion Camp Rwanda course took place in May 2024, educating a group of physicians, nurses and laboratory scientists on best practices in transfusion medicine. Transfusion Camp1,2 is a transfusion medicine education curriculum originally designed by a group of Canadian transfusion medicine and hematology faculty, including Dr. Yulia Lin and Dr. Jacob Pendergrast, who are part of the Canadian delegation teaching courses in Rwanda.
This is the second year a multidisciplinary team from Canada and Rwanda came together to teach a combination of didactic and team-based learning content focused on red cell, platelet, plasma, and cryoprecipitate transfusion in both adult and pediatric populations, along with key lectures in blood bank testing and massive transfusion.
The focus of Transfusion Camp Rwanda this year was on collaboration and expansion. This occurred through efforts to increase and diversify participants, expand the number of topics covered, increase the number of collaborating organizations and funders, and through the inclusion of transfusion medicine champions in neighbouring East African countries (Kenya and Uganda) to enable Transfusion Camp expansion in East Africa.
The number of participants doubled from 51 in 2023 to 116 in 2024 and, for the first time, included a cohort of nurses. This allowed for a truly multidisciplinary education format, sharing knowledge among all healthcare providers who manage patients receiving blood. It also facilitated the introduction of a new education sub-stream where nurses and lab scientists met together for one afternoon of the course and reviewed the processes of blood requisition, pre-transfusion testing, blood administration (checking), blood component management (transport and storage), and management of transfusion reactions.
Beyond the nursing and lab scientist sub-stream, two additional new topics were introduced to the curriculum. The physician participants in the course participated in a lecture and team-based learning seminar on Sickle Cell Disease co-developed by Aggrey Dhabangi from Makerere University in Uganda and Jacob Pendergrast from Canada. Secondly, Gatwiri Murithi, a current master’s student at the University of Global Health Equity, and Teresa Skelton partnered with the Vital Anesthesia Simulation Training Program, a charitable program championing simulation education in low-resource settings3, to develop and facilitate a hands-on simulation seminar on the management of massive hemorrhage in obstetrics. All participants took part in the simulation, practicing their roles as clinicians, nurses, and lab scientists.
Group photo training of the workshop
This year, the course continued to have support from the International Society of Blood Transfusion (ISBT) and the Rwanda Biomedical Centre-Blood Transfusion Division (RBC-BTD), with key contributions from Fabrice Ndicunguye in quality and safety and the lead of RBC-BTD, Thomas Muyombo. The course also benefits from ongoing support and participation from Zipline Rwanda. Thanks to Zipline, we added a well-received question-and-answer period with Zipline Rwanda representatives, which allowed course participants to learn more about blood product drone delivery in Rwanda and how they can best communicate and engage with Zipline. New this year, Transfusion Camp Rwanda benefited from the support of Results for Development (R4D), who contributed two experienced transfusion medicine educators, Theophile Dusengumuremyi, and Swaibu Katare, to lead the nursing and lab scientist education sub-streams.
Group discussion session
Samples for the workshop
Since its inception, Transfusion Camp Rwanda has been led by a core group of Rwandan physicians including Christopher Gashaija, Medical Director at RBC-BTD, Aimable Kanyamuhunga, Head of Department of Pediatrics at the University Teaching Hospital of Kigali (CHUK), Florence Masaisa, Head of Clinical Education and Research and Chair of Department of Internal Medicine at CHUK, Francoise Nizeyimana, Program Director for the Department of Anesthesia and Critical care and Transfusion Camp Rwanda Country course Director, and Claudine Uzamukunda, Department of Anesthesia and Critical care. A key objective of Transfusion Camp is to ensure that expansion of the program to more teaching sites occurs in a manner that is sustainable and promotes continuing professional development and mentorship among faculty. A collaboration was fostered between the Transfusion Camp Rwanda faculty team and two new sites, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching & Referral Hospital (JOOTRH) in Kisumu, Kenya, and Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, based on these principles.
Training Session
The ISBT funds received this year supported Stephen Okelo, the chair of the Kenya Society of Anesthesiologists, to bring together a team of transfusion medicine educators including himself, Edwin Oduor, Head of Surgery and Anesthesia at JOORTH, and Jude Massawa, from the Department of Clinical and Anatomic Pathology at JOORTH, to participate in Transfusion Camp Rwanda with the aim of evaluating the viability of a similar education program in Kenya. These three faculty took part in the first of the two courses in May 2024 as students and transitioned to faculty by the second course, leading seminars, debriefing the massive hemorrhage simulation, and sharing similarities and differences in transfusion medicine practices between Kenya and Rwanda with mentoring Rwandan Faculty. Time also allowed for the opportunity to tour the RBC-BTD, and the team was welcomed to Zipline Rwanda to learn more about hemovigilance and blood conservation and distribution practices in Rwanda.
A full team debrief, including team members from all four countries, reviewed course participant feedback, which was overwhelmingly positive. In addition, the proportion of participants who self-rated their “knowledge of transfusion medicine” as advanced or expert increased from 29% pre-course to 95% post-course. The next steps for collaboration were discussed, and pilot projects are in the planning phase through a grant from AFREhealth for a Transfusion Camp course for resident trainees in Uganda later this year. Faculty in Kenya, now having gained the ability to teach Transfusion Camp independently, are working towards course modifications and planning for a Transfusion Camp course in Kisumu, Kenya in 2025.
During the team debrief the aspiration of Rwanda becoming a hub of transfusion medicine education in Africa, with the resources to mentor program development and faculty, was shared by all team members and ongoing support from the ISBT, RBC-BTD and new collaborators such as R4D will help to turn this vision into a reality. Thank you to the ISBT for this years’ Transfusion Camp Rwanda support.
References
1. Lin Y, Tilokee E, Chargé S, et al. Transfusion Camp: a prospective evaluation of a transfusion education program for multispecialty postgraduate trainees. Transfusion (Paris). 2019;59(6):2141-2149. doi:10.1111/trf.15284
2. Lin Y, Khandelwal A, Kapitany C, Chargé S. Transfusion Camp: Successes and challenges in scaling and expanding a transfusion medicine education program. Transfus Apher Sci. 2023;62(1). doi:10.1016/J.TRANSCI.2022.103629
3. https://vastcourse.org/about-us/
