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Previous Volume 340:1690 May 27, 1999 Number 21 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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To the Editor: I was recently hospitalized in a major university hospital for the Guillain–Barré syndrome. While there, I had blood drawn, usually twice a day. During my two weeks in the intensive care unit, my hematocrit dropped from 43 to 31.

As chair of the Department of Laboratory Medicine at a well-known children's teaching hospital, I was shocked at the amount of blood drawn for my tests. I asked the phlebotomist to draw less blood, but she refused, saying that her instructions had to be followed. While I was completely paralyzed, I began to think about why hospitals draw . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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• Mather, A. (2000). Excessive Phlebotomies. Clin. Chem. 46: 139-139 [Full Text]