Emma Is a New Medical Assistant Who Has Been Called

Essay

Emma is a new medical assistant who has been called to the laboratory area in a busy family practice clinic because the lab is so busy. The regular lab employee has been drawing patients one after another for the past 2 hours and has not had an opportunity to process any of the samples so that they can be transported to the reference laboratory when the courier comes to pick them up. She asks Emma to help with the specimen processing.Emma gathers all the red-top and tiger-top tubes that are in the specimen rack and puts them into the centrifuge to begin spinning. She is very careful to balance the centrifuge appropriately, because she remembers that this was an important part of the process emphasized in lab class in school.When the centrifuge has completed the cycle, Emma removes the tubes. She notices that two of the tiger-top tubes do not look like the others. The part of the tube where plasma should be evident is somewhat cloudy and solid, and she is not able to separate off much plasma when she attempts to pour the specimen into another transfer tube.What is a likely explanation for the appearance of these tubes? What could Emma have done to avoid this problem?