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The Boston Globe had an article that produced disturbing notes on antibiotic medicine

and how it’s prescribed in healthcare. Overall the theme is good in promoting a major overhaul in educating future doctors about anitbiotics and how to properly prescribe them.

The full article can be viewed here, which is a great read. Here are some snippets:

-up to 50 percent of the antibiotics given out in hospitals are either unnecessary or inappropriate, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

-The issue of physician training has come into sharper focus thanks to the rise of antibiotic-resistant pathogens, which kill roughly 23,000 people in the United States and 700,000 people internationally each year.

-unlike any other class of drugs, antibiotics come with a compounding social cost. The more they are incorrectly prescribed, the more they contribute to resistant bacterial infections.

-Forty-one percent also admitted to consulting Wikipedia to learn about prescribing antibiotics, while only 29 percent turned to the guidelines created by the Infectious Disease Society of America.