Bloody Minded

Four humours in balance, the ancients decreed -
so open a vein, let the bad blood be freed.
From Galen to Harvey, from humours to genes, 
From black bile and phlegm to the things on our screens.
From PML::RARA to blood counts okay 
Let’s celebrate our specialty - we’ve come a damn long way

Join us as we travel from the first man to see a red cell, to the first to give people arsenic on pu...

Two vitamins survived the great B-numbering cull to become the tests we order most and trust least. Meet the 80% of your B12 result your cells can't touch, and the antibody that sabotages the very test built to catch it. Join the Bloody Minded Crew as we come to the lab for a second time this season to learn how B12 and folate assays are performed. 

TIMESTAMPS

0:55 - The boys check out a new lab
 2:25 - Episode overview<...

‘This bad boy can fit so much iron in it’ he said slapping the roof of a badly photoshopped molecule of apoferritin superimposed on a car. Is too much ferritin bad for you? Of course it is - too much is precisely the quantity that is in excess. But most of the time hyperferritinaemia has nothing to do with iron overload. Strap in to your 1992 Honda Civic as the Bloody Minded Crew learn all about ferritin, and why most o...

It's a BONUS episode today as the Bloody Minded Crew are delighted to partner with the Thrombosis and Haemostasis Society of Australia and New Zealand (THANZ). After (correctly) exiling Nick to another country after he suggested yet more coagulation themed episodes, he's returned like Gandalf stronger and more powerful than ever. We cornered THANZ members at the International Society for Thrombosis and Haemostasis 2026 meeting to c...

Nick wanted to talk about buckets all episode. I’ve convinced him to at least let us get angry at iron polymaltose, hypophosphatemia and nangs all over again. You don’t think you need this episode but you’d be amazed how many consults come through to Haem thinking we’re the gatekeepers of iron in the building. Ironic, really.

TIMESTAMPS

0:56 - 1960s pop culture reference
3:20 - Episode overview
4:40 - Ir...

On the Ning Nang Nongs where the youths smoke bongs and the marrow all screams HELP! Join the Bloody Minded crew as they go through the round window, follow B12 and folate around the body in a Nang induced haze, presumably just like the writers on Play School once were. 

Mandatory viewing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SUU1f3Mgpc&list=RD3SUU1f3Mgpc&start_radio=1

TIMESTAMPS

0:53 - A Bloody Minded After School Special

Heal with steel? Absolutely not - There’s no alloys or for that matter surgeons allowed in the safe space of the laboratory. Join us on another wonderful lab adventure as Bashar, Cale and Nick head down to the biochemistry lab to work out exactly how our iron studies are performed in the lab before you throw the serum iron in the bin.

TIMESTAMPS

0:53 - An early etymological diversion
2:53 - Serum iron
9:43 - UIBC
11:22...

Taunted by transferrin? Befuddled by ferritin? Scratching your head at why we throw the serum iron results directly into the confidential waste bin, which is a more dignified burial than it deserves? Come along as the boys discuss the interpretation of iron studies in a definitely tight, definitely 20ish minute episode.

Timestamps

00:54 - Just Iron Studies with No Nonsense
02:21 - Overview of Iron Stuides
03:42 - Serum Iron
...

One molecule to rule them all, one molecule to find them. One molecule to bring them all, and in the liver bind them. Hepcidin is the key to understanding iron metabolism and we examine how iron gets into, around and out of the body. We promise not to be too Celebrimbor-ing as you join Nick, Cale and Bashar  for this discussion of the basic science of iron handling in preparation for our journey into the building blocks of blo...

Has your ward team been hit with HITT? Is Jane the only Fonda you know? Is BAD an 80s hit and not a trio of anti-coagulation infusions (Bivalirudin, Argatroban and Danaparoid). Is Alison showing her age? Never fear; join Alison, Bashar, Nick and Cale as they aim to de-mystify less commonly used anticoagulation that may come up on the wards. 

TIMESTAMPS

0:56 - It's Fancypants Wednesday!
2:15 - Episode overview
4:37 - Fondap...

Join us in our third straight week of incredibly nice and incredibly talented haematology gurus as Professor John Moore joins us as an expert guest to discuss stem cell transplant in the myeloid disease setting. 

TIMESTAMPS

 1:00 – HYTTIOAOA
 1:47 – Introducing Professor John Moore
 8:06 – Advice to RMOs on the Allo Term
 11:02 – The history of allogeneic transplantation
&n...

This week we continue the pattern of guests who are really really ridiculously good at haematology and also really really ridiculously nice people as well. We are very excited to be joined by Dr Michael Krigstein who many of you would know as the a molecular haematology guru who has gotten countless patients through their diagnoses and countless haematology trainees through their exams.

Timestamps:

01:30 - Introducing Dr Michael Krig...

What happens when you take someone who is really really ridiculously good at haematology and also a really really ridiculously nice person as well? You get Dr Jad Othman, consultant Haematologist and Haematopathologist at Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney who will be joining us today to discuss the use of measurable residual disease in acute myeloid leukaemia.

Dr Othman is well suited to this topic, having written his doctoral th...

Here’s a question, what do CD123, CD4 and CD56 have in common? Other than pleasing The Count on Sesame Street. Sorry, another question perhaps - what happens if you cross a plasma cell and a dendritic cell? The answers to these questions can be found on a most enigmatic myeloid cell - the plasmacytoid dendritic cell. And what happens when these rare beasts become neoplastic - why BPDCN of course. Embark on a journey into this...

“It’s pronounced nuc-ul-ophosmin” “Nucleophosmin”. “Noo-clee-o-phosmin”. FLT3-ITD got you In The Dumps? Have a Total Knowledge Deficit about TKD mutations? Struggling with the A-B-Cs of NPM1 mutations? Want to know how a cat sarcoma is somehow related to AML? Join the Bloody Minded Crew as they flit about the laboratory looking at the structure of FLT3 and NPM1, what these proteins usually ...

U-G-L-Y, you ain't got no alibi, you dysplastic yeah yeah you dysplastic. Apologies to all the ring sideroblasts out there, but this week the Bloody Minded crew is doing a Mean Girls and judging cells by their morphology. For now we’re deciding to ignore those that would argue that it’s what’s on the inside that counts (i.e. judging by NGS… that’ll come later).

TIMESTAMPS

2:28 - For some reason, an audi...

What do arsenic, acne tablets and Jodi Picoult have in common? Why, it must be a deep dive with Nick, Bashar and Cale on acute promyelocytic leukaemia. From buzzwords to brain bleeds, the sweetest of translocations to the cruellest of coagulopathies... The yield is almost as high as the survival rates.

TIMESTAMPS

00:57 - Bloody Minded Poetry Jam & Jodi Picoult
06:25 - APML Starts Here
08:02 - APML - Where does it fit in AML...

After our initial intro to AML back in ep 79, we are back to dig deeper into AML this week, from pathophysiology through to treatment overview. The boys are joined by final year registrar Dr Georgina Calov who is here to cut through our nonsense and deliver some actual high yield content. And thank goodness for that, otherwise it'd be an hour of us making bad April Fool's day jokes.

Timestamps

2:09 - Introducing Dr Georgina Calov
...

Cat got your tongue? Or in this case - mucositis? Does converting the acute allogeneic transplant patient who can no longer eat's medications to IV fill you with dread? In this practical for once episode join consultant haematologist Dr Alison Chandler as well as haematology pharmacists Andriana Colic & Ariana McCauley as they take us through the how to of this challenging, but very common, clinical scenario. 

Timestamps

0:5...