Blood sample

RickP

RickP

I am trying to figure out the realistic way to describe a doctor checking someone's blood for a disease on the spot outside of a laboratory. For example a doctor wants to make sure a human does not have a certain epidemic disease. The way I have it in my script now is that he takes the person's blood with a syringe of sorts, and then adds a chemical to see what color the blood turns. Is this realistic in any way?
 
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Equipment does exist to help healthcare professionals (HCPs) analyse blood / sputum samples from patients outside the clinic. Clever hardware can measure levels of blood cells, or even tell if pathogens are present. It's obviously pretty expensive, but it would be entirely plausible to tell if an individual has, say, HIV, from a relatively quick and simple blood test while on location. Diabetes (not technically an infectious disease, of course) can be diagnosed in a similar way. Phlegm samples can be used to test for the presence of the TB bacterium as well.

I hope that is what you're looking for in the way of an answer!

Source: I'm a biomedical science graduate.
 
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As above. There are certain rapid tests for specific infections (e.g. for HIV rapid test altough this can take as long as 15-20 minutes), but it depends on the pathogen or disease. Of course it depends how quickly you want the result to occur?
 
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Although come to think of it, Hampshire NHS is using an HIV rapid test which shows results within one minute. I'm not sure if it is being used on a wider scale yet, though
 
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