Hey, phlebotomist and lab assistant here! The friend is sort of right. Many tests can be ran on the same tube. But there are reasons why they have to draw more than one tube, and sometimes even more than one tube of the same color. Reasons include:
Whether they need plasma/serum or whole blood. While light green plasma separator tubes and gold serum separator tubes will always be spun in the centrifuge, most tubes have both tests that get spun in the centrifuge and tests that don't. If you've got one spun test and one non-spun test, they can't go in the same tube.
Temperature and light! Some tests need to be kept cold, some need to be kept in the dark, some need both, and some need neither! While it won't necessarily damage other specimens to be kept cold or dark, it's better to keep them separate. And some specimens even need to be frozen.
Sharing tubes. Most of the time, the different departments of the lab can share specimens and everyone can get along. But sometimes, both departments need to do something to the sample that will make it so the other department can't do the test. There's also something that is specific to smaller labs like mine, and there's send outs. We do a lot of the more basic and common tests but when they need one of the weird ones, we send it to be done at a different lab. Occasionally a specimen can have a test done on it at our lab and then be sent out after, but usually in that case it needs to be different tubes.
Test timing. Some tests need to the specimen to sit before it can be done and some need it done fast. This one is pretty uncommon, since the usual reason for different timings is whether or not the blood needs to have clotted, and most of the additives are there to activate or prevent clotting. There are a few though where the problem has to do with what will happen to the blood over time.
Some tests (the ones in the blue tube) need to have a "throwaway" vial drawn. It can be drawn in any vial, and then you just have another vial. At my lab we will take those vials and put them "on hold," keeping the sample in case the doctor wants to add on a test while it still can be done. That way we don't have to draw more blood!
I've only been doing this a short while and I don't do any of the actual tests, so I'm sure there's other reasons I don't know. But there are several reasons, we're not just drawing a ton of blood for fun! And you think five is excessive? A few weeks ago I drew seventeen off of someone!
got blood work done today and i just remembered a time i got blood work done as a teen. after the nurse drew like 6 vials of the stuff, i asked him “is all that mine?” and he said “not anymore” and walked off
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Why haven’t you changed your header?
I don't have anything to change it too and I don't care enough to try and find something
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