Shortage of plasmapheresis nurses?

[EnergizerNurse]

Plasmapheresis is a blood purification procedure used to treat several autoimmune diseases. It is also known as therapeutic plasma exchange. A dialysis nurse shared with me that there is a shortage of nurses who are skilled in Plasmapheresis, and demand for them is very strong in the tri-state area of NY, NJ, and CT.

Of those of you who do HD, are you also cross-trained in plasmapheresis? How do the two compare?

[EricJRN, MSN, RN]

What I think you'll find is that frequently donor apheresis (of any type - plasma, platelets, granulocytes, others) is performed by pheresis technicians, under the indirect supervision of nurses and physicians. Departments that do therapeutic pheresis (plasma exchanges, etc) or stem cell collections are more likely to hire pheresis nurses.

Prior to nursing school, I worked as a technician in donor apheresis and our blood bank employed one RN. She served in an administrative capacity - coordinated training, did QA stuff, and served as a contact for donor eligibility questions.

At the hospitals where I've worked, HD and pheresis are two different animals and they're performed by separate personnel.

[indigo girl]

I believe the Red Cross in Philadelphia provides this service. You might check with them. It used to be that nurses did this there.

[BlevinsRN]

I work in acute hemodialysis in a hospital. We are trained to do plasmapheresis.

[iamnotanumberyet]

My son is a senior staff nurse in the UK and works in the dialysis suite where he does the whole range of dialysis including plasmapheresis. He said its not too difficult to learn.