Thursday, June 9, 2022 from 6:00 PM to 7:30 PM
On Thursday, June 9th, 2022, Emily Blumberg, MD and Ingi Lee, MD, MSCE presented Critical Vaccination & Transplantation Update for Community Partners: Managing COVID Vaccinations and More, a virtual CME session on updates to standard vaccination procedures, including COVID-19 vaccines, within the transplant community.
The series webinars were conveniently planned for the evening hours and was designed for specialists involved in the care of pre- and post-transplantation patients, including primary care physicians, nephrologists, nephrology RNs/APPs, gastroenterologists, gastroenterology APPs, pulmonologists, and cardiologists.
Session Recording
Faculty
- Emily Blumberg, MD
Director, Transplant Infectious Diseases, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania
- Ingi Lee, MD, MSCE
Assistant Director, Transplant Infectious Diseases, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania
Dr. Blumberg and Dr. Lee are the Director and Assistant Director, respectively, of Transplant Infectious Diseases at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. This CME session reviewed clinical considerations for vaccination in the transplant patient population, including the protocols and timing for all pre- and post-transplant vaccinations, and described in detail the evolving COVID vaccination protocols for transplant patients.
You can view the session recording above. Please note that CME credit is no longer available for this session. We hope you'll join us for our next live CME series.
Understanding Vaccination and Transplantation
Immunosuppression following transplantation places patients at risk for infectious complications from vaccine-preventable diseases and has the capacity to blunt vaccine efficacy in this population. Therefore, it's critical for providers to fully understand the protocols and timing for pre-and post-transplant vaccinations, including those for COVID-19, to protect transplant patients from infectious disease.
"Transplant candidates and their household members should have completed the full complement of recommended vaccinations prior to transplantation and the initiation of immunosuppression, when the vaccine is most effective," Dr. Blumberg says. Moreover, vaccination prior to transplantation may expand the pool of donor organs that candidates can accept without the need for post-transplant therapy.
Management of COVID-19 vaccination is evolving at both the individual and programmatic levels. Because the recommendations, precautions, and strategies for these vaccines are unique as they apply to the transplant community, expert specialist guidance is highly recommended for providers prior to vaccination, particularly for community physicians, advanced practice providers, and registered nurses, for whom timely, updated information on COVID vaccinations (and all vaccinations) is required pre- and post-transplantation.