A male patient comes to the clinic where you work complaining of urethral discharge and pain on urination. He has recently had unprotected sex with someone he met at a party. You take a sample of the urethral discharge for analysis.
-You tell the patient that his sample contains white blood cells in which Gram-negative diplococci can be detected. Your patient asks how you obtained this result and you tell him you

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Performing a Gram stain is the most appropriate and common method to detect the presence of bacteria and the type of bacteria in a sample. In this case, the presence of Gram-negative diplococci suggests a possible infection with Neisseria gonorrhoeae, which is a common cause of urethritis. Acid-fast staining is usually used for detecting organisms like Mycobacterium tuberculosis which are resistant to most stains. Culturing the discharge on specific media can help to identify the bacterial species, but it takes time to get results. Antibiotic susceptibility testing (antibiogram) is usually performed after identifying the bacterial species to determine the most effective antibiotics to use for treatment.

A Male Patient Comes to the Clinic Where You Work