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Clinical Electives Program: Sickle Cell Anemia

Length of Elective: 4-Weeks or 8-Weeks

Prerequisite: Internal Medicine Core Course

Rotation Coordinator:
Swee Lay Thein, MBBS, DSc

Rotation Description:
The medical student will be involved in the care of sickle cell patients enrolled in clinical trials at the NIH Clinical Center (CC) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The sites of care involve the outpatient clinic and day hospital (infusion clinic), with an emphasis on outpatient-research study visits. The experience will be different than academic centers or university based centers because of the research emphasis at the CC at NIH.

Rotation Objectives:

  1. Gain didactic knowledge and practical experience of sickle cell disease in adults, specifically the progression and management of acute complications such as vaso-occlusive pain crisis, infection, acute chest syndrome, and stroke.
  2. Gain didactic knowledge and practical experience in adults with chronic pain, cardiopulmonary complications, retinopathy, sickle nephropathy, and avascular necrosis of bone.
  3. Gain didactic knowledge and practical experience with the standard therapies for sickle cell disease, including hydroxyurea, red cell transfusion, exchange transfusion, and iron chelation therapy from red cell transfusions. Gain experience in the management of high dose opioid therapy, oral and parenteral, including patient-controlled analgesia.
  4. Gain didactic knowledge and practical experience on curative therapies for sickle cell disease, including transplantation of allogeneic or genetically modified autologous bone marrow stem cells.
  5. Gain practical experience with psychosocial challenges posed to patients with a chronic illness, and exposure to minority health issues.
  6. Gain exposure to basic and clinical research in sickle cell disease currently being conducted at the NIH and to recent research findings being presented at weekly research conferences and journal club presented by the sickle cell research groups at the NIH.

List of professional staff:

Swee Lay Thein, MBBS, DSc, Chief, Sickle Cell Branch, NHLBI

Other professional staff:

  • Courtney Fitzhugh, M.D.
  • Arun Shet, M.D.
  • John Tisdale, M.D.
  • Matthew Hsieh, M.D.
  • Emily Limerick, M.D.
  • Ruth Pierre Charles, PA-C
  • Kimberly Rivers, NP
  • Mary Lacy Grecco, NP
  • Elizabeth Harvey, NP

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