VIDEO: ‘We can all be antibiotic stewards’

SAN DIEGO — A speaker encouraged physicians who prescribe antibiotics to take the necessary steps to curb drug resistance and reduce disparities in care.

“We can all be antibiotic stewards,” Jasmine R. Marcelin, MD, told Healio. “The big take-home is ‘shorter is better’ — there are a lot of data that demonstrate that we can treat people with shorter durations of antibiotics without any increases in adverse events, without any increases in mortality, or any other problems related to their hospitalization.”

Marcelin, an infectious disease physician at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, also noted that Black and Hispanic patients are more likely to be diagnosed with multidrug-resistant gram-negative organisms, and she stressed how important it is to avoid “having one group of folks hurtling toward the precipice of antibiotic resistance faster than others.”

Marcelin recently spoke with Healio at the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America’s Spring Conference in Seattle about pharmaco-equity — “the idea that everybody will have equitable access to the medications that they need at the time that they need it, at all times.”

References:

• Marcelin J. Antibiotic abuse: Making the right call with antibiotics. Presented at: ACP Internal Medicine Meeting; April 27-29, 2023; San Diego.
• Spellberg, B. Shorter is better. BradSpellberg.com. https://www.bradspellberg.com/shorter-is-better. Accessed Dec. 28, 2022.