Why do you need to take many small samples when taking a bloodtest? Why can’t they just take one and use small amounts from there?
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It depends. Blood deteriorates quite rapidly outside of the body so they need to either do the tests right away or add anti-clotting agents to the blood before sending it to the labratory. However different chemicals may affect the tests so depending on what test is going to be conducted you might have to use different anti-clotting agents. Some of the chemicals added to the blood might also be part of the test and just needs to be added as soon as possible.
There are ways to reduce the amount of needles used when taking multiple tests. You can hook up multiple vials to the same needle either one at a time or all at once. Another way is to first draw blood into a small bag and then use this to fill up the test vials. However the nurse still have to do this initial blood work all at once. So quite often the nurse is sitting in front of the patient handling their blood in order to get it into the correct vials and doing some tests. If you have issues with seeing blood you can tell the nurse about it and they will try to hide it from you.
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