Reflections on ISTH 2015
By Haemnet
The XXV Congress of the International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis took place 20-25 June in Toronto. Over 7,000 people registered for numerous parallel sessions on bleeding and clotting – even the gorgeous sunny weather didn’t manage to stop hundreds attending every session. Between sessions the conference centre – three storeys underground – was like an ant colony with people scurrying in all directions.
And what of nurses? The meeting included two nurse forums, one on Sunday and one on Monday. Each session had about 150 attendees, combining both haemostasis and thrombosis nurses in sessions that mingled talks about nursing aspects of care for patients.
The key haemophilia talks were the non-haemophilia causes of haematuria in adult men; Greta Mulders (from The Netherlands) presented a great case study about a man with recurrent haematuria caused by bladder stones – not something we see in paediatrics, where haematuria is usually caused by trauma or infection – it made for interesting listening. Robyn Shoemark (Australia) and Tomie Fujii (Japan) did great talks about identifying carriers to ensure safe delivery of babies with haemophilia, even if there was no consensus about who/when or how to test.
vWD was a hot topic with case presentations by Vanessa Bouskill (Canada), Claire McGregor (Australia) and Anne Wareing (UK). All discussed various aspects of nursing care and practice – let’s hope that at least some of this gets into publication in the near future. Further reflections on the meeting are available on the video link below.
http://www.sobiplay.com/i/7CXTaEjxyO7RxnKbtz_H-Q
ISTH 2017 is in Berlin, and we hope to see lots of EU nurses there. Get your thinking caps on – you have much to share.