It's In The Blood

There are many reasons why people get their blood tested, for disease, drugs, to monitor treatment, drug therapy, or just to asses their general health. Getting blood tested is not a horribly complicated procedure, but every step is very important.

It starts out with the doctor writing an order, this tells the lab exactly what they need to test for. Then a nurse or a trained phlebotomist draws the patient's blood, after applying the tenacity and finding a good vein the person drawing the blood uses what's called a vacuum tube to draw the blood. The blood goes into a certain colored tube depending on the test that's going to be done, for example, in the pictures taken, the patient had two different tests done, the purple is for a general cell count, and the green is for routine chemistry tests such as glucose or electrolytes. After blood is drawn, the tubes go through a centrifuge with spins the blood at high speeds in order to separate the red blood cells from the platelets.

Then they are sent through either a machine called the automated hematology cell counter, which is used to categorize and count different cells in the blood, or a chemistry analyzer which tests for street drugs, or immunoassay analyzer, which tests prescribed drugs. When it's all done the blood is kept in storage for a week before being properly disposed of.