Dr. Rachel Beddard believes that along with its imperfections, human nature has a bright side. As associate medical director of the South Texas Blood and Tissue Center (STBTC), a big part of her job is ensuring that people volunteer to perform the selfless act of donating blood.

Beddard finds inspiration in the fact that our medical system depends so heavily upon volunteers to give the blood needed for people who are sick, who require surgery and who are injured. But she also knows that with the region’s growing population and booming medical sector, new donors must be recruited and retained.

“Our primary mission is to help the hospitals get all of the blood components that they need,” Beddard says. “We never lose sight of that. One of the biggest efforts is increasing donor retention, by getting those donors to come in regularly. And we need to recruit them young because that establishes a life-long habit and a life-long dedication to continue donating.”

Beddard believes educating people about the importance of donating blood can win lifelong donors.

“If you give the people the information and the ability, I think people will do the right thing,” she says. “So we need to give them the information and the ability to donate. We need to provide them the ease of donating at a convenient location. We need to make it a good experience from the start. There are many ways to bring the opportunity to the people, and I really believe that people, given the option, will do the right thing.”

Beddard, a 38-year-old native of Northern Virginia, joined the STBTC part-time in 2005 as medical director of the Texas Cord Blood Bank (TCBB). The TCBB, which was established by the STBTC with funding from the Texas Legislature and private donors, is part of a nationwide effort to establish a public supply of umbilical cord blood. Cord blood, which is rich in stem cells that can develop into various cellular blood components, can treat immune system disorders and blood-related diseases, such as leukemia and sickle cell anemia.

Beddard developed a passion for transfusion medicine at the Eastern Virginia Graduate School of Medicine. She is board-certified in clinical pathology and transfusion medicine and is a member of the American Association of Blood Banks, the College of American Pathologists, the American Society of Clinical Pathologists and the American Medical Association.

She seized the opportunity to join the STBTC in 2005, even if it meant traveling frequently from North Carolina. She could not relocate to San Antonio because her husband, interventional cardiologist Dr. John Gresham, was doing a fellowship in North Carolina, and because she and her husband were the parents of twin daughters who were only three years old at the time.

“I couldn’t be here full-time,” she recalls. “I rotated through here as a transfusion medicine fellow at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and loved it. I knew from the beginning that I really liked the organization, their mission and their view on how to make a difference. So when I was given an opportunity to start part-time, I grabbed it.”

The position at the TCBB also offered an opportunity to pursue another love, the therapeutic potential of cord blood. The TCBB has increased its network of donor hospitals to seven statewide, while enhancing the ethnic diversity that increases the likelihood of suitable genetic matches for transplant candidates nationwide.

“Some patients, such as minorities and mixed races that have not been able to find a match, now have a better chance of getting one because we are have extended our base of patients and have more minorities donating,” she says. “Also, the physicians collecting umbilical cord blood are dedicated and motivated, and as a result, collect high quality cord units. This enhances our chances of helping patients in need of a transplant.”

The TCBB recently has celebrated the release of its first units of cord blood for transplant, as well as the news that several have engrafted and reconstituted patients’ bone marrow to produce the needed blood-forming cells.

Associate medical director since August 2007, Beddard oversees medical aspects of several programs at the STBTC, including Donor Recruitment, Donor Services (including apheresis, autologous and directed donations), the National Marrow Donor Program, Special Procedures (including blood-type and Rh determination, antibody detection and identification, cross-matching of blood components and red-cell typing for special patients) and the TCBB.

The job also involves ensuring quality control and assurance, safety for donors and recipients and counseling.

Beddard also gains inspiration from her daughters, who turn fiveyears- old in February.

“My daughters know my husband as the heart doctor, and they know their mommy as the blood doctor,” she says. “For me, I come home every night and know that I’ve helped so many people in our community, and my daughters know that, as well. The way they describe our jobs to their friends is that ‘Daddy fixes broken hearts, and mommy saves people’s lives that lose blood.’ That’s their concept at this age of what we do every day at work.”