Bone marrow donation virtual event highlights need for donors, diversity

Participants in a virtual panel Jan. 20 learned about the process of signing up for the bone marrow donation registry through Be the Match, operated by the National Marrow Donor Program, which manages the most diverse marrow registry in the world.

Bone marrow, the spongy tissue inside bones where the body’s blood-forming cells are made, can be used to treat a variety of blood cancers and conditions. It also contains stem cells that can be used in medicine.

Medical students, undergraduate students considering medical school, and the general public were invited to attend the session.

The event was coordinated by the Brody School of Medicine’s chapters of I Am First, Student National Medical Association and Latino Medical Student Association, and sponsored by Dr. Chris Heery, Brody School of Medicine alumnus and oncologist.

According to Be the Match statistics, the odds of a white patient finding a match are 79%, while the odds of a Black patient finding a match are only 29%. (Source: Be the Match)

Dr. Amanda Higginson, Brody’s interim associate dean for student affairs and clinical associate professor of pediatrics, shared her story of being a bone marrow donor for a child suffering from a form of blood cancer.

“I remember where I was — I was in the peds clinic, working — when I got a call letting me know I was a potential match,” she said.

Higginson said one of the first things she did after moving to North Carolina was get on the registry.

“Organ donation is something that I feel very strongly about,” she said. “As physicians and physicians to be, we all came into this field to help people broadly.”

Joining the registry, she added, is a way to directly help someone fighting blood cancer.

Dr. Beng Fuh, pediatric oncologist with the Brody School of Medicine and Vidant Health, explained the science behind bone marrow donation. He said finding a match between a patient and a donor goes beyond genetics. He explained the process of making matches and how donations can help save lives.

Student speakers included Jennifer McMains and Michael Denning of I Am First, an organization for first-generation medical students. Second-year medical students Breia White and Beth Richardson also spoke, along with Sarah Holden, North Carolina’s Be the Match recruitment coordinator. All encouraged education and awareness of signing up for the bone marrow registry and potentially becoming a match for a patient in need.

Richardson hosted a Be the Match event last fall after witnessing her boyfriend undergo a bone marrow transplant and seeing the disparities that other patients experienced.

“Though his experience and through talking with other stem cell transplant patients, we learned about the disparity between races currently represented in the bone marrow registry. We felt personally called to reach out to Be the Match and see how we could help add donors to the registry to help give everyone access to lifesaving medicine,” Richardson said.

Data tells the story of the stark differences in chances patients have of finding a bone marrow match with the current registry. While the odds of a white patient finding a match are 79%, the odds of a Black patient finding a match are only 29%, according to Be the Match statistics.

McMains said that the students support Be the Match because of the emphasis on advocacy at Brody and their desire to make a difference before they begin working directly with patients.

“As medical students, we spend the first two years primarily in a classroom learning foundational science and details about almost every human disease and disorder,” she said. “Medical students, as a group, but especially those at Brody, have a deeply rooted passion for helping the underserved. Although we are not yet interacting with patients in the clinic on a daily basis, we can still have a role in their care through advocacy.”

One of the session’s goals was to educate the public on the diversity behind bone marrow donation — and the difficulties that patients can have in finding a match with their same racial background.

That fact hit home with the students, McMains added, because part of Brody’s mission is diversity in its cohorts and focusing on easing the gaps caused by health disparities in the community.

“Brody has a goal of recruiting a diverse cohort of medical students,” she said. “In addition, Brody deliberately works to educate medical students on how to give the best care possible to diverse groups of patients. This event showcases the extreme disparities that exist in bone marrow matching, based primarily on the ethnicity of patients, and it allows Brody and ECU students to do something tangible to help. This event also helps educate students who are not aware of health care disparities in hopes of empowering them to help work towards a solution.”

The event also featured a session during which undergraduate students considering a career in medicine could interact with current medical students.

“The path to becoming a doctor or any health profession is difficult especially for students who are the first in their families to apply and attend college or graduate school,” McMains said. “Many first-generation students feel that they are ‘missing information’ as compared to other students that obtain advice from family members who have higher education degrees. By creating connections between current medical students and pre-med undergrads, we can bridge that gap in knowledge.”

To learn more about Be the Match or joining the registry, text “Brody” to 61474. To learn about other ways to be engaged or host an event, visit Be the Match or contact Sarah Holden at sholden@nmdp.org.