Thirty questions on testing the balance between clot formation and clot breakdown. Platelets make the plug (primary hemostasis), coagulation factors make the fibrin (secondary hemostasis) and plasmin takes the clot apart (fibrinolysis), and each laboratory test evaluates one of these. Expect the platelet count and function tests, the prothrombin time, the international normalized ratio, the activated partial thromboplastin time, thrombin time and fibrinogen, mixing studies, D-dimer, the patterns that tie the results together (disseminated intravascular coagulation, liver disease, vitamin K antagonists, heparin, hemophilia, von Willebrand disease) and the difference between a bleeding workup and a thrombotic workup. Every laboratory value comes with the scale that reads it — you are never asked to recall a reference range, and nothing in this topic is calculated.
Answers reveal only after you choose. Your score and a breakdown by objective appear at the end, with a review of everything you missed.