Plethora is an excess of something, used in medicine usually to refer to a fluid, especially blood. Plethoric facies describes a flushed and full red face, overfull with blood.
And so it is with the Red Cross. It has become plethoric as detailed in this New York Times article from back in August. Fortunately, we are giving fewer transfusions in medicine, perhaps at long last internalizing the data from the heft of recent studies on the lack of benefits of transfusions in multiple arenas. This decline in transfusions has led to a surfeit of blood and falling prices per unit, which is leading the Red Cross to hemorrhage employees.
I want to use this post to convince you that you should reconsider whether or not to donate (or transfuse) blood. Why would a person donate blood anyway? "Because it's the right thing to do," comes the reply. Why would a person think that?
And so it is with the Red Cross. It has become plethoric as detailed in this New York Times article from back in August. Fortunately, we are giving fewer transfusions in medicine, perhaps at long last internalizing the data from the heft of recent studies on the lack of benefits of transfusions in multiple arenas. This decline in transfusions has led to a surfeit of blood and falling prices per unit, which is leading the Red Cross to hemorrhage employees.
I want to use this post to convince you that you should reconsider whether or not to donate (or transfuse) blood. Why would a person donate blood anyway? "Because it's the right thing to do," comes the reply. Why would a person think that?