Hematology
The blood and marrow: anaemias and haematinics, bleeding and clotting, growth factors, haemoglobinopathies, and blood cancers.
Foundations
How blood is made, and the products we transfuse.
Anaemias & Haematinics
Iron, B12, folate and erythropoiesis — filling an empty tank.
Haemostasis & Anticoagulation
Where clotting drugs act, how to reverse them, and heparin-induced thrombocytopenia.
Bleeding & Pro-haemostatics
Drugs that STOP bleeding — antifibrinolytics, desmopressin, and clotting factors.
White Cells & Growth Factors
Rebuilding the marrow — colony-stimulating factors and platelet agonists.
Haemoglobinopathies
Sickle cell and thalassaemia — disease-modifying drugs and iron chelation.
Blood Cancers
Leukaemias, lymphoma, myeloma and myeloproliferative disease — from chemo to targeted therapy.
How Blood Is Made: Haematopoiesis and Where the Drugs Act
Right now, in the marrow of your bones, roughly two million red cells are being finished every single second — and just as many worn-out ones are being retired. It is the busiest factory in the body, and it never closes. This chapter is the map of that factory: the one stem cell everything descends from, the three signals that drive the main production lines, and — the point of the whole Hematology section — exactly where each drug reaches in to speed the line up, restock its raw materials, or shut it down.
Blood Products and Transfusion: The Components and When to Give Them
A unit of donated blood is almost never given whole. It is spun into parts, and each part is a different "drug" for a different problem: red cells carry oxygen, plasma and cryoprecipitate carry clotting proteins, platelets build the plug. Prescribe the wrong one and you either waste a scarce resource or fail to fix the bleed. This chapter treats each component like a medicine — its indication, its trigger, and its dangers.
The Approach to Anaemia: Reading the MCV to Find the Cause
Anaemia is not a diagnosis — it is a clue. A patient is pale and exhausted, the haemoglobin is low, and the temptation is to reach for iron. But which anaemia? The whole differential — a long, frightening list — collapses into three tidy boxes the moment you read one number on the full blood count: the MCV. Learn to read it and the second axis, the reticulocyte count, and the blood film stops being a mystery and becomes a map that points straight at the treatment.
Iron Deficiency and Iron Therapy: Oral, IV, and Why Timing Matters
She is 24, exhausted, breathless on the stairs, and her tablets have turned her stool black. She takes them faithfully — with her morning coffee — and after two months her blood count has barely moved. Nothing is wrong with the iron. Everything is wrong with the timing. Follow one iron atom from the plate to the marrow and you will see exactly where half her dose is lost, why alternate-day dosing can beat daily, and when a tablet is simply the wrong tool.
Vitamin B12 and Folate: Megaloblastic Anaemia and the Trap of Treating Blindly
Two vitamins, one job: building the DNA that lets a cell divide. Starve a marrow of either and it produces huge, clumsy, immature red cells — megaloblastic anaemia. But the two are not interchangeable, and one deadly shortcut can hide behind the other. Give folate alone to a patient who is actually short of B12 and you will polish the blood count while the spinal cord quietly rots. This is the story of how to tell them apart — and why you never treat blind.
