Penn Animal Blood Bank (PABB)
As a result of the growth in veterinary specialty services, the demand for blood transfusions has risen dramatically. Specialties such as emergency medicine, critical care, internal medicine, orthopedic surgery, soft-tissue surgery and oncology have created a need for more and different blood. The Matthew J. Ryan Veterinary Hospital averages 300 transfusions per month as blood and blood products are used to support animals with anemia, bleeding and other conditions. Similar to the American Red Cross, our volunteer donor program "Pets Helping Pets" allows healthy pets to donate blood. Each donation of whole blood can be processed into components such as packed red blood cells, fresh frozen plasma, platelet rich plasma and cryoprecipitate. Thus, one unit can serve more than one patient.
Our canine supply is supported by the Bloodmobile, which is used for blood drives several days a week at local veterinary hospitals and breed clubs. In addition, Ryan Veterinary Hospital staff and students pets donate during in-house blood drives. Donna Oakley, PABB director, has a staff of three veterinary nurses who organize the blood drives throughout the Delaware Valley. More than 3,000 canine blood donors have participated in the program so far, and about 1,000 dogs are regular, active donors.
Read about the Bloodmobile's 2002 launch in Bellwether, the School's newsmagazine.
Connect to the PABB Web site.