A patient comes to see you, complaining of a very sore throat. When you examine her, you find that she has a fever of 39 o C, and you observe that her throat is extremely red, with pus on her tonsils. You swab the pus and make a slide, which you then send to the clinical lab for Gram staining. The lab sends back a report in which it is noted that the slide has many long chains of round cells that have stained purple in color.
-Based on the Gram staining, you suspect that the patient has a ________ infection.
A) fungal
B) bacterial
C) protozoan
D) algal
E) prion

Question

A patient comes to see you, complaining of a very sore throat. When you examine her, you find that she has a fever of 39 o C, and you observe that her throat is extremely red, with pus on her tonsils. You swab the pus and make a slide, which you then send to the clinical lab for Gram staining. The lab sends back a report in which it is noted that the slide has many long chains of round cells that have stained purple in color.
-Based on the Gram staining, you suspect that the patient has a ________ infection. 
A) fungal
B) bacterial
C) protozoan
D) algal
E) prion

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The long chains of round cells that stained purple suggest that the infection is bacterial. Gram staining is a technique used to classify bacteria based on differences in the composition of their cell walls. Bacteria either stain purple (Gram-positive) or pink (Gram-negative) based on their cell wall structure. The presence of long chains of round cells that stain purple suggests that the bacteria responsible for the infection could belong to the Streptococcus group of bacteria, which commonly cause diseases such as strep throat.

A Patient Comes to See You, Complaining of a Very