Pretend that you are clinical microbiologist working at a 350-bed community hospital. You have received a urine specimen in a sterile "clean catch" container, which has been refrigerated and contains approximately 50 ml of urine that is cloudy. Another similar sample was sent to the general clinical laboratory for a routine urinalysis.

Using the Internet or an authoritative microbiology text book or laboratory manual describe in 300 to 500 words exactly which media would you use to inoculate a portion of the urine specimen and under what conditions would you incubate such as specimen and for how long. Assuming that you isolated large amounts of Escherichia coli describe how they would appear under the microscope following the Gram stain of one of the colonies that grew up on an Eosin Methylene Blue Agar plate (EMB). Describe how the organism would appear on EMB and the various media. What would you do to confirm and identify Escherichia coli.