Diagnosing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) remains critical for improving patient survival rates and treatment outcomes. Current antibiotic susceptibility tests (AST) suffer prolonged turnaround times, necessitating a minimum of 24 h for results. Attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy emerges as a promising phenotypic testing method in bacteriology due to its rapid chemical characterization capability. Here, we present an innovative approach utilizing ATR-FTIR spectroscopy for rapid AMR assessment, distinguishing between methicillin-resistant