David Steensma, MD

Just before the first deaths from the SARS-CoV-2 virus were reported in the U.S. and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts declared a state of emergency, my wife and I went for a Sunday afternoon hike in a park south of Boston called World’s End, which now seems prophetic. In 1945, World’s End was short-listed as a [...]

As I begin writing this editorial, nanoscience expert Charles Lieber, PhD, Chair of Harvard University’s Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, is sitting in a nearby jail. He has been held there since his arrest by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on January 28.1 A federal judge has set his bail at $1 million, [...]

In 1963, Boston hematologist William Dameshek wrote an essay in the journal he’d founded 17 years earlier, Blood, describing 18th-century English anatomist William Hewson’s detailed studies of the thymus.1 Before Hewson’s untimely death at age 34 from sepsis contracted during cadaver dissection, he not only linked the thymus to the lymphatic system, he also discerned the [...]

ASH Clinical News Associate Editor David Steensma, MD, reviews The Breakthrough, which traces the evolution of immunotherapy to treat – and potentially cure – cancer. Have you read any hematology-related books recently? Let us know what we should read and review by emailing us at ashclinicalnews@hematology.org.

On a typical weekday, I receive 200 emails and send 40. Unless you, dear reader, are the taciturn Seattle hematologist who hasn’t responded to any of my emails since 2014, your incoming and outgoing electronic communication volume is likely similar. (If you are that guy, there is no longer any need to reply to my [...]

This month, David Steensma, MD, discusses transfusion burden in a patient with clonal cytopenias of undetermined significance. And don't forget to check out next month's clinical dilemma - send in your responses for a chance to win an ASH Clinical News-themed prize!

Shakespeare claimed that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. A medication with a confusing name, though, can cause a fatal mistake. That’s why pharmaceutical companies exert so much effort creating clear and distinctive contemporary drug names, sometimes with peculiar results. The drug-naming process is complicated – with multiple steps and people [...]

Recently, a hospital in Boston announced that a senior staff scientist had developed a “cure” for leukemia. I wasn’t surprised to read this – there are many clever and creative leukemia investigators in Boston, and promising new developments emerge from local labs on a regular basis. Were I a devoted follower of academic medical center [...]

During their presentations, MHM speakers will be asking the audience how they would respond to patient cases. Audience members will vote live at the meeting via an audience response system, but we want to know what you would do. Send in your responses for a chance to win an ASH Clinical News-themed prize!

The great experimental physicist Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937) provocatively claimed, “All science is either physics … or stamp collecting.” Lord Rutherford intended his cocky quip as a jab at the geologists, chemists, and biologists of his era – especially zoologists and botanists, with their endless species descriptions and taxonomies, but lack of a coherent narrative about [...]

When did your interest in crossword puzzles start? Did you enjoy puzzles growing up? My mother has long been an avid “cruciverbalist” – a crossword puzzle aficionado. In 1977, when I was in elementary school, Mom subscribed to a new magazine called Games, which included a workable newsprint puzzle section called, “Pencilwise.” As my own [...]

The first time I ate bone marrow was, fittingly, shortly after I spoke on marrow failure at a conference in Milan, where osso bucco with saffron risotto is a local specialty. The tiny, back-alley trattoria where I could afford dinner on a hematology fellow’s salary was praised in a guidebook written by public television’s European [...]

“Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It’s splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.” ― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables Despite the cultural and political differences that divide us, humans across the globe are remarkably similar. As Sting once sang, “We share the [...]

After years of attending the ASH annual meeting, I’ve come to understand my meeting-related emotional cycle well enough to avoid taking it too seriously. Each December, I rotate through a set of five now-predictable peri- and intra-meeting moods, paralleling Freytag’s classical dramatic arc – a trivial version of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ canonical stages of grief. If [...]

When a shocking historic event occurs, many can remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard the terrible news. I, too, can recall intimate details of awful incidents like the September 11th attacks or the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. But I also remember times when I was surprised by joy [...]