This summer, the Ross Medical Education Center campus in Taylor had the pleasure of a visit from Caitlin Regan, a representative from Be the Match. Caitlin came to share information regarding the process and incredible benefits of bone marrow donation. She shared a video about a young boy whose life was saved after he received a bone marrow transplant from his sister. The staff, faculty, and students were deeply touched by the video and many were compelled to register to be a bone marrow donor, recognizing the amazing impact that they could potentially have on someone’s life.
Be the Match is an organization which recruits and registers bone marrow donors. When a need is brought to them, Be the Match uses their donor registry to connects patients with their donor match for a marrow or umbilical cord blood transplant that could improve the quality of or even save a life. In addition, they provide patients and their families with one-on-one support, education, and guidance before, during, and after transplants. Throughout the past quarter of a century, they have worked to build the largest and most diverse bone marrow registry in the world.
Throughout Caitlin’s visit, the students, staff, and faculty learned a lot of interesting information about blood cancers and the donation process. For example, many of those present for Caitlin’s talk did not know that every three minutes someone is diagnosed with a blood cancer and every 10 minutes, someone else dies from blood cancer. For thousands of patients with leukemia or other blood diseases like sickle cell anemia, a marrow transplant is their only hope. Be the Match makes finding a matching donor much more of a reality for patients around the world.
To join over 24 million other potential donors in the registry, make a monetary donation, or just find out more information, visit the Be the Match Facebook page or their website at https://bethematch.org/.