Amanda Cowart, wife of Optimist Member, James Cowart, spoke at last week’s breakfast meeting. Amanda and Jim have been married for about eleven years, and have two school aged children; a boy and a girl.
Amanda and James Cowart work in the related field of bio medicine. However, they work from two different perspectives. Where James maintains and services bio medical equipment, Amanda uses the equipment to analyze blood. She is a Certified Laboratory Technician, specializing in the field of Hematology, or blood analysis.
As demonstrated by the large number of questions from the audience following her presentation, life carrying blood remains a mystery to the average citizen, and is a subject most have little concern for. That is, until the situation arises where they may need it in an emergency for a transfusion in order to save their life.
Despite all efforts to synthesize it, there are no permanent blood substitutes. Amanda herself, has found it necessary to receive blood from a donor, and knows first hand how important to her survival it was to be able to have her blood type available at that critical moment in time. There are four general categories of blood types: A, B, O, and AB. But each blood type is further labeled as positive or negative which is a reference to the Rhesus factor of the blood. To prevent rejection and potential life threatening diseases, individuals must receive their own blood type, and Amanda’s job is to analyze donated blood prior to its use, to determine type compatibility, and to screen for the Rh Antibodies, as well as any possible blood born diseases.
The Rhesus factor, also known as the Rh factor, gets its name from experiments conducted in 1937 by scientists Karl Landsteiner and Alexander S. Weiner. These experiments rabbits which, when injected with the Rhesus monkey’s red blood cells, produced an antibody, afterwards referred to as the Rh, or Rhesus factor. Approximately 85 % of the world’s population has the Rh Positive factor, indicated with their blood type followed by the plus sign (O+), or followed by the negative sign (O-) if they don’t have it.
Amanda, when asked what blood type is most rare, said it was probably type AB-. However, she claimed that the blood type most in demand is type O- because it is the universal blood type for all recipients, regardless of their own blood type, or Rh factor. For that reason, those with type O- blood types are sought out by blood banks, and asked to become regular blood donors. However, because whole blood has a short shelf life of only ninety days, there are not nearly enough volunteers and, therefore, there always exists a shortage of this life saving blood type on hand.
If an individual is un-aware of their blood type and Rh factor, a good way to find out is to donate blood. If the individual is found to have the critically needed type O- blood, it is advisable for them to donate their blood so that there will be a sufficient quantity on hand to save lives, keeping in mind that the life they save could be their own. If an individual is found not to have the type O- blood, donate anyway, it could still save one’s own life. Also, the various blood constituents, such as, plasma, and blood platelets can be used to help a patient survive until their blood type can be found.
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