Several times a year I get asked for my opinion of what antibiotics to take when going on holiday. It always makes me think back to a Grand Round (a hospital teaching session for the entire medical department) I attended as a House Officer many, many years ago… but NO! Not in the era before antibiotics thank you very much… I’m not that old…!
The Grand Round was “Desert Island Drugs” and featured a GP, an Elderly Care Physician and a General Medicine Consultant (who I happened to work for). The basic premise was “what drugs would you take with you if you were to be marooned on a desert island and why?”
The Grand Round was “Desert Island Drugs” and featured a GP, an Elderly Care Physician and a General Medicine Consultant (who I happened to work for). The basic premise was “what drugs would you take with you if you were to be marooned on a desert island and why?”
The talks were fascinating. The GP spent about half an hour listing hundreds of medicines for multiple different conditions; his drug kit would have weighed a ton! The Elderly Care Physician said he wasn’t going to go as he was too busy so he was going to send his elderly granny instead; he then went on to list 10-15 drugs his granny would need. While my Consultant stood up and said “I would take heroin (diamorphine) and ONE antibiotic that treats all these infections” he then pulled down a rolling blackboard (that’s the equivalent of an interactive white board to you youngsters) with about 20 infections listed on it. He invited the audience (still sniggering at the heroin reference) to try and guess what the antibiotic was… It took ages for the audience to move away from the big guns like Meropenem and Piptazobactam and realise he was talking about Benzylpenicillin. It was brilliant, he showed that with just two drugs, and an extensive knowledge of his subject, he could manage almost anything the desert island could throw at him… it was inspiring!
So based on my memories of the Grand Round (which appear in sepia tones through rose-tinted glasses) I will approach the question about what antibiotics to take on holiday with the premise “less is more”.
Where are you going? What are you doing?
My first response to those asking me what to take is to find out more about where they are going and what they are going to be doing.
So based on my memories of the Grand Round (which appear in sepia tones through rose-tinted glasses) I will approach the question about what antibiotics to take on holiday with the premise “less is more”.
Where are you going? What are you doing?
My first response to those asking me what to take is to find out more about where they are going and what they are going to be doing.
RSS Feed
