Quality Samples
Through out my entire college career and following into my career as a Lab Tech, the idea of a quality sample has been pounded into my head. After all if you get a garbage sample you’ll get garbage results that are inaccurate and don’t paint the correct picture of what’s going on with a patient.
The other day I had a nurse bring a urine sample from the ER that was visibly bloody, and my first thought was “Well that’s not good”. The nurse handed it to me and said that the patient was menstruating and got some blood from that in the urine cup. I said “Ah, well that means the sample is contaminated and isn’t going to give accurate results.” The nurse said she was told to bring it over anyway by the doctor.
Being the diligent patient advocate that I am, I picked up the phone and called the ER to speak to the doctor. I explained to him that there was vaginal contamination in the urine, and that anything that is seen in the UA will be inaccurate as we won’t know if it’s because of her urinary system, or because of the vaginal contamination. His response was “Well I don’t really care what the results are, I’m just doing it for the admit” I said “Well since she is menstruating and not able to give a clean sample, couldn’t we do a cath UA then?” His response was “Nah, I don’t really want to do that, and I don’t really care about the results so just use the one that you got from the nurse.”
Well If you don’t care about it, it must not be that important. So why order it? It’s not going to be useful or even diagnostic, and it’s a waste of my time and the patients money.