The mentoring journey

01 Jun 2025

This Academy Day session was held on June 1 2025, during the 35th Regional ISBT Congress in Milan, Italy.

The mentoring journey session included the following presentations:

1. Syeldy Langi Sasongko: The Journey of the ISBT Mentorship Programme
2. Marion Vermeulen: The I TRY IT program
3. Beukou Fonkou Hygin Steve: Mentorship journey from a mentee's lens

Moderators: Gwen Clarke, Jill Storry

The questions and answers are also included in the recordings.

Did you know? You can jump to any presentation by clicking the “Chapters” icon (three horizontal lines) in the video player.

Find below the complete congress programme (pdf) and the link to the Milan congress abstracts, which were published in Vox Sanguinis.

Milan 2025 programme

Milan 2025 Abstracts

The Speakers

Syeldy Langi Sasongko

ISBT mentorship programme coordinator, former ISBT YPC member

Syeldy Langi Sasongko

ISBT mentorship programme coordinator, former ISBT YPC member

Syeldy obtained her Research Master’s in Global Health at Vrije University, Amsterdam in 2017 and began working at Sanquin, the Dutch national blood bank, shortly thereafter. Syeldy is a qualitative and mixed-methods researcher and completed her PhD at Sanquin studying how blood banks change during times of uncertainty. She has participated in a BEST collaborative project on immunoglobulins and worked for the European Hematology Association in the SUPPLY project Work Package 6. She was the former European representative of the ISBT Young Professionals Council (YPC), chairwoman from 2022-2023, and loves helping the young professionals community.

Email:: [email protected]
LinkedIn:: https://linkedin.com/in/praiseldy-syeldy-sasongko-94ab48159/

Marion Vermeulen

ISBT Regional Director Africa, Individual Member Representative at the ISBT TTID WP, Executive, Transfusion Medicine and Technical Services, South African National Blood Service (SANBS)

Marion Vermeulen

ISBT Regional Director Africa, Individual Member Representative at the ISBT TTID WP, Executive, Transfusion Medicine and Technical Services, South African National Blood Service (SANBS)

ISBT Regional Director Africa (2024-2028)

Marion Vermeulen is the Executive: Transfusion Medicine and Technical Services at the South African National Blood service (SANBS). She has worked for most of her 35 years in Transfusion Transmissible Infections. Her current role consists of the development of the SANBS strategy with direct responsibility for the donation screening, processing, crossmatching, issuing, transportation and logistics of 1 million donations per annum. She obtained her PhD from Stellenbosch University in advancements of transfusion safety with regards to Transfusion Transmissible Infections (TTI). She is an active member of the international society for blood transfusion (ISBT) TTID working party and is the chairperson of the I TRY IT program that provides mentorship to young early career researchers through the ISBT.

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Beukou Fonkou Hygin Steve

Transfusion Medicine Specialist and Head of Blood Transfusion Services, Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Services (CBCHS)

Beukou Fonkou Hygin Steve

Transfusion Medicine Specialist and Head of Blood Transfusion Services, Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Services (CBCHS)

Passionate about translating transfusion medicine-related research into evidenced-based practice. Moreover as transfusion medicine specialist, inquisitive about developing context-based protocols in clinical transfusion and global blood safety programmes for the community. This drive led Steve to join the Quality Management and Global Blood Safety working parties of the ISBT. Moreover, Steve was selected as a Harold Gunson Fellow at the ISBT congress of 2021 and was an “ I TRY IT” 2023 mentee.

Post his MD degree as valedictorian, he obtained a scholarship to specialize in transfusion medicine at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium. Currently, he serves a transfusion medicine specialist and head of blood transfusion services for the Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Services (CBCHS) with over 5000 staff. He oversees the improvement of its quality management system via bridging the gap between demand and supply of blood, ensuring GMP of blood components, appropriate use of clinical blood, hemovigilance, training and education of the healthcare staff involved in transfusion etc while working towards international accreditation such as that of the African Society for Blood Transfusion.

His passion in PDMPs further led him to join the Global Blood Supply WP of the ISBT where he takes part in activities of the Safe Plasma Proteins subgroup. Furthermore, he was one of the few Harold Gunson Fellows in 2021, presented a couple of scientific research at the ISBT congresses and is an I TRY IT Mentee 2023. In addition, merging digital technology and transfusion medicine led to the birth of the social venture, Blood Track (www.bloodtrack.cm), which he coordinates.

His aspiration to contribute in the transfusion medicine world at a bigger scale, spurred him to enroll in the Management in Transfusion Medicine Program (MBA in transfusion medicine) offered by the University of Groningen in partnership with Sanquin.

The Moderators

Gwen Clarke

ISBT Secretary General, Chair of the Vox SC; Clinical Professor, University of Alberta, Canada, Edmonton, Canada

Gwen Clarke

ISBT Secretary General, Chair of the Vox SC; Clinical Professor, University of Alberta, Canada, Edmonton, Canada

Secretary General (2018-2026)

ISBT Secretary General, Chair of the Vox SC; Clinical Professor, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

Gwen Clarke is a physician with training at the University of Alberta and at Emory University. She has clinical and research interests in perinatal immunohematology and experience as a hospital transfusion medicine physician and with the Canadian blood supplier. Her current role with Canadian Blood services includes medical leadership for perinatal and immunohematology reference laboratories, consultation in donor testing and for the Rare Blood Program. Gwen is a Clinical Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine at the University of Alberta. She is a former program director for residency training in Hematopathology and an examiner for the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. Gwen has recently completed a term as president of the Canadian Society for Transfusion Medicine.

Jill Storry

ISBT Vice President, Associate professor, Division of Hematology and Transfusion Medicine, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

Jill Storry

ISBT Vice President, Associate professor, Division of Hematology and Transfusion Medicine, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

The mentoring journey

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