Ethics and Quality Control
What this domain tests
Questions cover patient consent, confidentiality, professional boundaries, and the daily quality systems that make a laboratory result trustworthy: internal QC, external quality assessment, calibration and corrective action.
Core rules
- Obtain informed consent before sample collection and explain the procedure in a language the patient understands. Keep results confidential; discuss them only with authorized persons.
- Work within your training. Do not interpret a result as a diagnosis or change a report to please a clinician.
- Run internal QC at the start of each shift and after calibration. Plot control values on a Levey-Jennings chart and apply Westgard rules.
- A 1-2s rule is a warning; 2-2s, R-4s or 10x violations indicate rejection. Stop, repeat the control, check reagents and calibration, and document corrective action before reporting patient samples.
- Participate in external quality assessment and retain records as required.
Worked example
A glucose control gives a value above +2 SD, and the next control is also above +2 SD. Reasoning: two consecutive control results outside the same 2 SD limit is a 2-2s violation, so the run is rejected. Do not report patient glucose values. Repeat the control with fresh material, check the reagent lot and calibration, and only report after the fault is corrected and QC passes.
Traps
- Treating a single 1-2s warning as automatic rejection.
- Calibrating the analyzer and assuming QC is unnecessary.
- Reporting patient results while QC is failed.
- Discussing a patient's report with relatives without consent.