Dr. Robert Whitfield explains how traditional culture testing, used since the 1950s, grows live organisms on agar plates to identify infections. Molecular methods answer different questions. Neither replaces a clinician's judgment and listening to the patient.
Now, the reports that look for microbiology specifically, and in tradition, you know, a Q-tip swab-like tool is used to collect the specimen, put in a tube, and sent to the lab either from a surgery center or from a hospital, and then it's put on what's called an agar plate, A-G-A-R plates, And then you see what will grow. So the that's a measurement of live organisms, and so that's very different. And we'll get into why that's a different tool for use. It's it's been around since really the 50s, that technique, or earlier honestly. And so each of the methods, each of the reports. Know, answers different questions. There's not a particular test that replaces the, you know, listening to the patient, developing a clinical picture, and then, you know, plotting a course, you know, for the patient.
