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Initiatives
Bone marrow stem cell donation project at UBC Ying Yao, Merry Gong, Rui Chen, Donald Yung, Celeste Loewe University of British Columbia, Class of 2013 arious life-threatening disorders (e.g., leukemia and lymphoma) can be treated with allergenic hematopoietic stem cell transplants, which involve transplanting the donor’s healthy stem cells to the patient’s bone marrow to replace diseased cells. Allogeneic donors and recipients must share compatible tissue markers (HLA) to minimize complications such as graftversus-host disease. Contrary to common belief, the majority of patients (>70%) are unable to find a match within their families and must rely on the OneMatch Stem Cell and Marrow Network to search for an unrelated donor. Since a patient’s best chance of finding a non-related donor match is within the same ethnic group, it is important to have adequate representation for all ethnicities in the stem cell registry. Unfortunately, for reasons unknown, Chinese individuals are quite underrepresented in the global stem cell registry. Out of the 13 million registered donors in the Bone Marrow Donors Worldwide database, less than 4% are of Chinese origin. Chinese–Canadians make up only 2% of the Canadian registry. Furthermore, young adults, whose stem cells are healthiest and most suitable for donation, have relatively low registration rates in the OneMatch Stem Cell and Marrow Network. To address these issues, we created the Bone Marrow Stem Cell Donation Project at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Our project consist-
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Contrary to common belief, the majority of patients are unable to find a match within their families ed of three phases. During the first phase, UBC students aged 19–30 and of Chinese descent were surveyed to investigate common barriers or misconceptions that help to explain why Chinese–Canadian young adults are underrepresented in the OneMatch Network. Phase two involved holding a workshop to raise awareness and educate UBC students regarding hematopoietic stem cell donation process. Finally, we held two on-campus stem cell drives to increase donor registration in this age group. Preliminary survey results show a lack of understanding of the process involved in hematopoietic stem cell transplants. For example, even among the 10% of respondents who are already registered as potential donors, 70% of them were not aware that hematopoietic stem cells can be collected from peripheral blood. It is hoped that the results of this project will be a valuable resource to contribute to the success of future stem cell campaigns and the CFMS Annual Review
recruitment of potential donors. We also successfully held two oncampus stem cell drives at UBC with the help of volunteers. Our final tally of newly recruited donors was 460 — many more than we had expected! Through our efforts, we also encouraged some of our first-year colleagues to continue these drives in the coming year. Over the course of the project, we were able to fulfill many of the CanMEDS competencies. Forming an understanding of the barriers to stem cell donor registration is much like assessing our future patients’ pre-formed notions and core values required for any effective medical consultation. We also learned to assess people’s attitudes in an effective, culturally-sensitive, and clientcentred approach, which is an important component of the “Medical Expert” competency. The project enabled us to collaborate extensively amongst ourselves, external organizations (OneMatch and the OtherHalf Chinese Stem Cell Initiative), other medical experts, as well as the media. Excellent communication, resource management, organization, and timely decision-making are all essential for an effective collaboration — in turn developing our skills which are integral to the “Collaborator”, “Communicator”, “Manager”, and “Professional” competencies. As our project has been committed to raising public awareness, we have also developed our competency as “Health Advocates.” APRIL 2012