Antibiotics Essay

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Antibiotics
Throughout history disease has run rampant taking many lives with every passing day. Finding a cure or even just a tool in the battle has been the main focus of scientist throughout time. This focus is what brought us the discovery of antibiotics. Over the years antibiotics have been misused by patients, over prescribed by physicians and have led to resistant strains of bacteria.
Resistant strains are no joke, for years my mother has been dealing with MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus). My mother has had MRSA so bad that at one time she was covered in MRSA sores much like when a person breaks out in hives. Watching her suffer the way she has worries me as I am also a healthcare worker and know what these resistant strains are capable of. I know these strains exist because of a lack of proper patient education. Proper patient education is key to the use of antibiotics and prevention of resistance-bacteria strains.
A Brief History
To provide proper patient education there first needs to be an understanding of the history of antibiotics. “Alexander Fleming identified the mold Pecicilium notatum, which inhibited the growth in certain bacteria. Examples of these bacteria re Staphylococcus aureus, haemolytic streptococcus, pneumococci, and meneingococci. In 1929, he published his findings suggesting that penicillin could be used for treatment but he made no further progress.”(141-142)
Ernest Chain and Howard Florey with the knowledge of Flemings work were able to successfully purify an extract of penicillin for testing. The tested it in 1940 on mice, they concluded that those who were given the penicillin lived whereas the others did not. Later in 1945 all three men received the Nobel Prize for their contr...

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...ntibiotics are used for. Antibiotics are used to fight bacterial infection not viral. That means antibiotics don’t work on the common cold or flu. Some patients pressure their physician into prescribing antibiotics for those viral infections. “This pressure can include explicit requests, appeals to non-medical circumstances, accounts of previous consultations and self-diagnosis” (292)
Conclusion
“The World Health Organization projects that as drug effectiveness decreases and antibiotic resistance increases, public education becomes more and more crucial” (476) Antibiotics were discovered in 1940 and since have been abused and misused. Between bad practices and lack of proper education antibiotic resistance has been allowed to occur. The only way to combat bacterial infections is with strong patient education and following the correct schedule in taking antibiotics.

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