Here is an excerpt from slate.com providing a doctor’s account of why too many antibiotics are given out. It brings up an interesting question to psychotherapy. That is, should we kick out patients who we don’t feel need treatment? If we keep them in treatment, are we reinforcing the idea that they are sick and need help?
While working a busy night shift in the ER recently, I evaluated a 13-month-old girl. On her chart, the triage nurse had written: “Infant with fever and runny nose. Mother here for antibiotics.” The baby was fussy but probably more tired than uncomfortable. Between her squirms, she cooed and smiled at me. Her anxious and upset mother, however, was in far worse shape, repeatedly sticking a rubber bulb syringe up her infant’s nostrils in a futile attempt to suck out an endless stream of snot. The mom was also really mad: She had been waiting for more than three hours for a doctor to see her daughter. Now she wanted antibiotics: specifically, a prescription for bubble-gum-flavored amoxicillin.
By my assessment, the child was not acutely ill: She’d had a low-grade fever for two days, her mother said, and a mild cough, but she had clear lungs and appeared well-hydrated. Her eardrum may have had some fluid behind it but wasn’t red or bulging. Just as the baby was trying to put my stethoscope in her mouth, paramedics pushed through the ambulance doors with a patient who was having an acute stroke. I had to decide right then if I was going to give this mother the antibiotics she wanted, even though I thought her daughter probably didn’t need them.
The profligate prescription of antibiotics—for children and adults with upper respiratory infections, sinus infections, and even middle-ear infections—is a problem because most of these illnesses are caused by viruses, not bacteria, which are what conventional antibiotics attack.