NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — As cases in Nashville and across the state continue to climb, more of us may be forced to get tested for COVID-19. But what kind of test will you receive? Well, that depends on where you go for testing.
At Vanderbilt University Medical Center's hospitals and clinics, it could either be a nasal or nasopharyngeal test. Nasal tests just involve swabs of both your nostrils. The nasopharyngeal tests jokingly referred to as the brain swab goes a lot deeper. Both are accepted by the CDC.
"We leave it up to the clinicians to select whether or not they want to do a nasal or nasopharyngeal test," said Dr. Jonathan Schmitz, Medical Director of Vanderbilt's Molecular Lab.
Dr. Schmitz says most of their clinicians opt for the nasalpharyngeal because it's more thorough.
"All things being equal, it’s nice to collect as rigorously and vigorously as possible," he said.
But it's not always equal when it comes to someone's pain tolerance or fear, so a patient can request a milder nasal test.
"We have the longer swabs that permit folks to do either kind of testing technique they deem appropriate for a given patient," said Dr. Schmitz.
The drive-up testing locations around Nashville also use the longer stem swabs but the testers are instructed to only swab around the inside of your nostrils using the nasal test. Dr. Julie Gray, Assistant Dean of Meharry's School of Dentistry admits those swabs can look intimidating but it shouldn't feel that way.
"So the swab itself does look long, but that entire length of the swab of what you saw is not going all the way into the nasal cavity," said Dr. Gray.
While Meharry administers the tests at the drive-up locations, it's overseen by Metro Public Health. However, PathGroup, the lab group that Metro uses, provides all the testing supplies.
NewsChannel 5 reached out to PathGroup about why they use long stem swabs for nasal tests, but so far we haven't heard back.
Vanderbilt University Medical Center says they use the long stems for all tests so that the clinician can easily choose between which test they want to administer while keeping the same testing supplies.
