Post created by Kyra
For those who watch a lot of television, you may have heard of a TV show called Lost. Lost is about group of people who survive an airplane crash. The protagonist, Jack Shephard is a surgeon and as the course of the show goes on, the viewer gets to see him perform multiple medical practices, namely surgery. As someone who is interested in anatomy and physiology it is interesting to see and evaluate how accurately the show portrays the medical side of things.
While on the island, a character, Boone falls from a high cliff and is immediately rushed back to Jack. There are multiple wounds that Boone has endured including a hefty chest injury that has caused the loss of a lot of blood. Jack suggests a blood transfusion is to take place, but first they must figure the patient's blood type in order to know what kind of blood he can receive. I was interested to know how accurate they would portray this part of the show; would they completely skip over the details of blood transfusions or would they go into detail and explain what kinds of blood he can receive and why? Upon finding out the character has A negative blood they did explain that they need A negative or O negative in order to have a successful transfusion. I liked that the show paid attention to detail and stayed true to what would have actually happened in real life.
I was happy to realize that I knew what they were talking about in the show. It is interesting that learning about blood types in my anatomy class helped me to understand the medical side of a television show. In class we learned about surface antigens on red blood cells and how they can determine a person's blood type. Along with learning about surface antigens and antibodies that attack these antigens, we learned about which types can donate and receive from others. O negative blood is the universal donor because they do not have A-antigens, B-antigens, or the Rh protein that will draw the attention from antibodies in the body. AB positive blood on the other can receive from anyone but can only donate to other AB positive people because the A-antigen, B-antigen, and Rh protein are all present on the red blood cell. So when AB positive blood is given to someone with B positive blood, the antibodies in the recipient's body will want to attack the A-antigen (see blood transfusion chart below).
It is great to know that the things I am learning about in A & P can be applied the real world. There are several times, especially now with the corona virus that I am able to explain things that I have learned in A & P about the immune system. It is good to know that what I am learning is useful to me and that I can use what I learn to teach the people around me!
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