SM Quality Assurance & Compliance 5

Question 1

What is the MOST important reason for maintaining a temperature log for a microbiology incubator?

Accepted Answer

To ensure organisms are incubated under optimal, validated conditions

Answer

Temperature logs document that incubators maintained required conditions for organism growth, ensuring culture results are valid and defensible.

Question 2

A laboratory introduces a new lot of Mueller-Hinton agar. Before using it for patient testing, the technologist should:

Accepted Answer

Perform pH testing and QC disk diffusion with ATCC strains

Answer

New media lots must be verified by pH testing and QC testing with ATCC reference strains before being placed in service for patient testing.

Question 3

A chain-of-custody form is MOST critical when handling which type of microbiology specimen?

Accepted Answer

Forensic or medicolegal specimen (e.g., sexual assault, legal case)

Answer

Chain-of-custody documentation is required for medicolegal specimens to establish a documented, unbroken record of specimen handling admissible in legal proceedings.

Question 4

Which of the following BEST describes the role of an internal audit in a clinical microbiology laboratory?

Accepted Answer

Self-assessment process to identify non-conformities before external inspection

Answer

Internal audits are systematic self-evaluations performed by the laboratory to identify and correct non-conformities before external accreditation inspections.

Question 5

A positive control for MRSA screening by PCR fails to amplify. What is the MOST appropriate immediate action?

Accepted Answer

Hold all patient results and investigate the cause of positive control failure

Answer

When a positive control fails, patient results from that run are invalid and must be held until the cause of failure is identified and resolved.

(SM) Specialist in Microbiology Practice Test

(SM) Specialist in Microbiology Practice Test

SM Quality Assurance & Compliance 5