Meet the Transfusion Medicine team
GUEST BLOG – Sonny Lazaro, Resource Technologist in Transfusion Medicine at SickKids
I started working at SickKids 32 years ago and have not regretted one minute of it since. My name is Sonny Lazaro and I am one of the Resource Technologists in Transfusion Medicine.
Transfusion Medicine encompasses the Blood Transfusion Laboratory, Stem Cell Laboratory and Tissue Laboratory as well as the Patient Blood Management Program.
We support SickKids patients with blood components, blood products, plasma protein products, bone marrow and stem cell processing, various tissues such as heart valve allografts and autologous eye drop preparations. We provide our service to many different clinical programs at SickKids including Surgical, Transplant, Emergency/Trauma, Critical Care, Infectious Diseases, and the various Clinics including Haematology/Oncology, Dialysis, Immunology, Rheumatology and Ophthalmology.
“Team Work” is what best describes the staff in Transfusion Medicine.
“Team Work” is what best describes the staff in Transfusion Medicine. It can get extremely hectic at times when ‘all hands are on deck’ to handle multiple requests from patients in urgent need of blood.
Dr. Wendy Lau, Alison, Archana, Betty, Carol, Conchita, Elizabeth, Kathleen, Nadia, Letka, Lyndon, Mengie, Raymond, Ru Nan, Sia, Weeman, Xinyu and myself provide services as a team 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Together we ensure that patients are provided with compatible blood and other products they require to see them through a crisis situation or regular blood transfusion needs. In addition, our Patient Blood Management Program optimizes hemoglobin for our patients scheduled for surgery to limit the need for transfusion during their procedure.
I’m very lucky to be working with a group of professional and dedicated people. Even though our role is mainly behind the scenes, we play an important part in taking care of SickKids patients.
We all have our own families waiting for us at home and working over the holidays is difficult, especially when you have little ones. However it is nothing when compared to what our patients and their families must be going through. It’s great to see SickKids go all out with all the decorations, the snow dogs and the huge nutcracker bears to create a festive atmosphere in the Atrium to ensure the kids and their families feel like they’re at home during the holidays.
I think I can speak for all of the staff when I say the satisfaction we get at the end of a shift, knowing we worked to the best of our capabilities to ensure we give the patients all that they require, is a very rewarding feeling.
I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a fantastic New Year!
