I Graduated! Looking Back On My Last Year of Training

This week, I graduate from my transfusion medicine fellowship at the NIH. It’s the culmination of a year that was equal parts challenging and productive — a year in which I learned not just by observing, but by building. And now that I’m closing this chapter, I want to take a moment to reflect on what I built.

🛠 Process and Quality Improvement

From day one, I gravitated toward problems I could fix. I helped rewrite the Blood Services Section guide for fellows, corrected longstanding issues in key computation tools, and developed new order sets to streamline workflows and reduce risk. I also authored a standardized transfusion reaction holy book with impressions and recommendations for over 12 different transfusion reactions, including literature citations, and I also created a standardized note template to support more consistent documentation across the team. And I made major updates to the platelet script — a vital tool used to guide transfusion medicine physicians through complex platelet ordering decisions.

📄 Publications

My research on total blood volume estimation in obesity yielded two first-author publications. I also first-authored a case report (in press) and published a formal response to a letter to the editor — sharpening both my scientific voice and my advocacy for evidence-based transfusion.

🎓 Professional Development

Along the way, I completed the AABB Cell Therapies Certificate Program, earned QIA certification, and participated in ASCP's leadership institute. I also worked through the entire Transfusion Medicine Self-Assessment and Review to prepare for boards — a reminder that learning doesn’t stop between projects or during service.

🩸 Writing and Outreach

I shared my perspectives through essays in Critical Values and The Pathologist, tackling complex and sometimes uncomfortable issues in laboratory medicine. And I kept writing here — publishing multi-part blog series on platelet products and fresh frozen plasma (FFP), with the goal of making nuanced transfusion topics a little more accessible to busy clinicians and curious trainees alike.

🧑‍🏫 Education

I delivered formal lectures on pediatric transfusion, obstetrical transfusion, and hematopoietic progenitor cell (HPC) mobilization — each one tailored to the specific challenges of learners and the clinical context in which they were practicing.

🤝 Supporting the Team

I covered service and call for colleagues when needed and made a point of writing commendations (“High Quality Service STARs”) to recognize the work of others. Because part of building something good — especially in medicine — is noticing what others are building, too.

Graduating from fellowship isn’t just about checking boxes. For me, it’s about knowing I left something better than I found it. That I contributed to the field in a meaningful way. And that I’m heading into the next phase of my career not just trained, but ready.

Next stop: Assistant Professor of Pathology at the University of Wisconsin. Onward.