Data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey show that bronchitis and URIs account for a third of the nation's antibiotic prescriptions. Antibiotics treat only bacterial infections and are completely powerless against viral illnesses. Every doctor knows this. Yet, according to a recent study by Dr. Ralph Gonzalez, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver, when adults consult physicians for URIs and the bronchitis that often follows them, more than half walk out with a prescription for an antibiotic. If doctors simply stopped prescribing antibiotics for conditions they know don't respond to them, we'd instantly be well on our way to minimizing antibiotic resistance.
Physicians are quick to blame the public.
Patients, they say, demand antibiotics, and doctors are so terrified of malpractice suits they prescribe them to keep their customers happy and their lawyers at bay. All of their medical education conspires to make an antibiotic prescription their knee-jerk reaction to any infection, which may or may not have a bacterial cause. In addition, prescribing antibiotics is the doctors' path of least resistance. Most medical practices schedule patients at 15-minute intervals. Rather than doing what they know is right for public health, it's much quicker for doctors to whip out the prescription pad and send people on their merry, albeit misinformed way.