Education

The longitudinal resident clinic is a weekly half day clinic for ambulatory hematology patients. 

In the first year of training the adult hematology clinics are held at the Peter Lougheed Centre Specialty Ambulatory Clinic Area and provide opportunity for longitudinal assessment, care and follow-up of patients referred to a general hematology practice.

In the second year of residency, the focus of the longitudinal resident clinic is malignant hematology at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre. Residents will spend 3-4 months in a myeloid diseases (including acute leukemia) clinic, 3-4 months in a myeloma clinic, and 3-4 months in a lymphoid diseases clinic to ensure exposure to the broad spectrum of hematological malignancies.

The clinical inpatient rotations at the Foothills Centre include three x 4-week rotations with responsibility for patients with benign and malignant hematologic disorders admitted to the Hematology inpatient service at the Foothills Medical Centre.  Each of the rotations will provide graduated responsibility for patient assessment and management, as well as the overall management of an in-patient service.

The consult rotations at the Foothills Medical Centre include three rotations of 4 weeks duration with responsibility for patients with benign and malignant hematologic disorders admitted to the Foothills Medical Centre.  Each of the 4-week rotations will provide graduated responsibility for patient assessment and the clinical management plan.

This rotation is based out of the Peter Lougheed Centre. The rotation allows the resident to experience high volume clinical care of patients with hematologic disease in both the ambulatory and acute care setting.  The rotation is intended to give the hematology trainee experience in busy community-based practice principally within a large urban community.

During the R4 year, this rotation is designed to allow early exposure to the outpatient evaluation and management of patients with lymphoma and plasma cell disorders, and includes the role of autologous stem cell transplantation for these diseases.

This rotation is designed to provide maximal outpatient exposure to the diagnosis and management of patients with hemostatic and thrombotic disorders.

The Palliative Medicine rotation is a mandatory clinical rotation with teaching provided by the faculty and staff of the Division of Palliative Medicine at the University of Calgary. Palliative care, pain and symptom management and end of life decision making are critically important aspects of the care of patients with both malignant and non-malignant Hematologic disease.

The general hematology pathology rotation focused on building competency in the review of peripheral blood smears. It also includes exposure to the diagnostic approach to hereditary hemolytic anemias, hemoglobinopathies and body fluid cytospin.

At the completion of the rotation the clinical trainee is expected to be familiar with the indications for BM biopsy, will understand the methodology regarding slide preparation (push vs. squash), will comprehend the value of additional clinical and laboratory data in the final diagnosis provided to the clinicians, will be able to describe the microscopic findings and appreciate the value of ancillary techniques to the final diagnosis/sub-classification and will be able to suggest additional studies if required to facilitate the interpretation of BM biopsy material.

The goal of the Transfusion Medicine rotation is to provide fellows/ residents with the knowledge and skill, within a comprehensive training experience, to understand the performance and interpretation of serologic testing as well as product manipulation and provision. The rotation focus is on the effective allocation of resources to provide optimal patient care through safe, appropriate transfusion therapy.

This rotation involves a discrete period of protected time to perform research, however this is greatly facilitated by the resident having prepared a research project, designed and submitted it to ethics prior to the start of the research block to allow for most efficient use of time and a productive research experience.

The Hematology Resident participates in a Community Hematology rotation based on their choice of the Chinook regional hospital, Red Deer Regional Hospital or South Health Campus.  The rotation allows the resident to experience high volume clinical care of patients with hematologic disease in both the ambulatory and acute care setting, in a smaller city tertiary care centre or at South Health Campus.  The rotation is intended to give the hematology trainee experience in community-based practice as a career option.

This rotation is designed to allow exposure to the outpatient evaluation and management of patients with a variety of malignant and pre-malignant conditions, including acute leukemias, myelodysplastic syndromes, myeloproliferative disorders, and on occasion rare diseases such as mast cell disorders and aplastic anemia.    During this rotation, residents attend a variety of hematologic malignancy clinics, at least half of which will be allogeneic stem cell transplantation (AlloSCT) outpatient clinics, as this is an important treatment modality for these hematologic malignancies. 

This rotation will provide the resident with the knowledge and skills pertaining to the use of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and cellular therapy in the care of patients with hematologic diseases. This rotation is of 4 weeks duration on the inpatient BMT service on Unit 57 at the Foothills Medical Centre and builds on the objectives in the outpatient clinic setting for the “Lymphoma & Myeloma Clinics” and the “Leukemia & AlloSCT Clinics” rotations.

This rotation is designed to provide maximal exposure to a variety of benign hematology disorders with an emphasis on outpatient exposure to hemoglobinopathies & thalassemias and immunodeficiencies.

The choice of elective and list of objectives for this rotation are chosen by the resident but must be discussed with and approved by the Program Director in advance of proceeding with this elective.

The four-week Lymph Node module is designed to familiarize the trainee with the process of the lymph node/hematolymphoid mass biopsy, processing, evaluation and diagnostic assessment at the level of both primary and consultative/expert pathology practice.

The Special Labs rotation consists of 4 one-week rotations: Flow Cytometry, Cancer Cytogenetics, Molecular Hematology and Special Coagulation.

Advanced Transfusion Medicine
The goal of the Transfusion Medicine rotation is to provide fellows/ residents with the knowledge and skill, within a comprehensive training experience, to understand the performance and interpretation of serologic testing as well as product manipulation and provision. The rotation focus is on the effective allocation of resources to provide optimal patient care through safe, appropriate transfusion therapy.

Tissue Typing
In this one-week rotation, the resident will gain a clear understanding of technical aspects of Tissue Typing as it applies to transplantation with the emphasis on hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT).

CTL
This module is designed to familiarize the trainee with the technical and theoretical aspects of blood and marrow transplant product processing, manipulation, and quality.  The trainee will develop a clear and detailed understanding of the processing, manipulation, and quality control involved in the processing of transplant products.