The Medical And Microbiology Fields Essay

One of my areas of interest is microbiology, particularly the mechanisms by which pathogens evade host defense systems and cause disease. Since I currently work in a microbiology lab I have read a few papers dealing with these issues and as such I would like to investigate the clinical aspects of bacterial infections.

Pathogens are everywhere. They are in people, animals, and the environment. Pathogens come in a wide variety. The types are fungal, bacterial, viral, and other parasites. All pathogens can be dangerous, but two of them are more dangerous. These two types that more dangerous are fungal and bacterial. While both fungal and bacterial pathogens cause illness, they differ in the way they are transmitted, the way they are treated, and the diseases they cause.

Throughout my life, adults have insisted the use of antibiotics to fight against the most inconsequential illnesses, whether it’s the cold or the flu. However, neither illness is due to invasion of bacteria. This misuse can lead to antibiotic resistance, also known as antimicrobial resistance(AMR), currently one of the central issues facing the public health system. While the process for antibiotic resistance occurs naturally through the process of adaptation, the mismanagement of antibiotic resources has accelerated the rate at which the bacteria adapt. The occurrence of this misinformation isn’t limited to a few adults: even some of my peers suggest taking antibiotics when faced with the flu. This leads to asking whether AMR is truly a problem and are present regulations enough to combat the issue.

Since the introduction of penicillin to the public in 1942, antibiotics have gained widespread use throughout the world. The drug has allowed society to make advancements in medicine, increase an individual’s personal well-being, extend life expectancies, and stop and prevent infections. Antibiotics are one of the largest backbones to maintaining personal health in society today, yet there may be a day when we are no longer able to depend on antibiotics to fight infections. In the essay “Imagining the post antibiotic future”, Maryn McKenna establishes the importance of antibiotics to juxtapose how devastating life would be without them.

Antibiotics-resistant organisms have become one of the most serious threats to public health, infecting over two million people and killing approximately 23,000 people annually.1 According to the CDC, “total inappropriate antibiotic use,” such as prescribing unnecessary antibiotics or giving the wrong dose or duration, makes up to 50% of all outpatient antibiotic use,2,3 and in 2009, the United States spent $10.7 billion on antibiotics, indicating that there is a lot of potential money to save.4

Hospital acquired infections are one of the most common complications of care in the hospital setting. Hospital acquired infections are infections that patients acquired during the stay in the hospital. These infections can cause an increase number of days the patients stay in the hospital. Hospital acquired infections makes the patients worse or even causes death. “In the USA alone, hospital acquired infections cause about 1.7 million infections and 99,000 deaths per year”(secondary).

With all of our modern advances, it seems somewhat strange that chronic health problems have become so commonplace. When antibiotics were discovered, they predicted the end of disease. Instead, we now have a world full of frightening antibiotic resistant infections.

Another crucial element to consider is the emergence of bacterial strains resistant to antibiotics,given the widespread use of these drugs as a prophylactic or a therapeutic regimen.

A current predicament in the field of science is antibiotic resistance against superbugs.Though fighting against superbugs; which can be defined as a strain of bacteria unable to be killed using multiple antibiotics, is now a large problem, in the past it was not. The evolution of resistance in bacteria due to antibiotic abuse and lack of product development has brought upon us once again the fear of a pre-antibiotic era; one where simple, once easily defeated infections could kill. Already, infectious diseases are the 3rd leading cause of death in the US and the 2nd across the entire world, and drug resistant superbugs send 2 million Americans to hospitals every year; killing 23,000 of those people. And any bacterium can quickly and easily become multidrug resistant, the leading cause of this being antibiotic misuse in both humans and animals.( "Clinical Infectious Diseases." The Epidemic of Antibiotic-Resistant Infections: A Call to Action for the Medical Community from the Infectious Diseases Society of America. UCLA Medical School. Web. 27 Mar. 2016.)

Widespread use of antibiotics has been very controversial in the media as well in the general population. Due to these controversies, it is very misunderstood to how antibiotics work leading to many patients in the hospital setting wanting to take them when it is not necessary or refusing to take when it is necessary for their survival. Some of this controversy is due to antibiotic resistance, which has spread an alarming rate in the 21st century (Walsh, 2000). Antibiotic resistance is the result of very strong bacteria or microbes that are resistant to the antibiotic prescribed and those microbes accumulate overtime by their survival, reproduction and transfer, leading to increased levels of antibiotic resistance.

The use of the healthcare system as a whole is largely determined by the cost incurred by the patient, as well as insurance companies within the healthcare system. As for combating the growth of antibiotic resistance, it might be beneficial to increase the cost of antibiotics so that they are used only when clinically appropriate. This, however, would lead to a decrease in access to patients who might actually need these forms of treatment and who are unable to afford them. Additionally, increasing the cost of treatment options may cause there to be a delay or abandonment of therapy. While neither of these options may be ideal to patients, and even the healthcare system as a whole, the consideration of their use may aid in lowering the prevalence of antibiotic resistance.

The medical community has warned the public that this disaster would occur. Although with all warning nothing has been done to solve this situation. There has been causes from this dilemma. The first cause is the deadly infections that became aggressive. People were so frightened that they began starting to find a cure to the many infections. Now since antibiotics have been discovered it has taken over. It has created the world to become addictive to antibiotics. Antibiotics have led to a large misuse of the medication. “The CDC estimates that half of all antibiotics taken in the US are

"Don't run after success, run after excellence then success kisses your feet". "Give society the best you have then you will get the best you deserve". These sentences have very significant meanings in my life. Ever since my childhood, I have been taught to get involved in my jobs by heart. And yeah, I believe in hard work and destiny not to run after it, and creating the way to my destination by myself. It was learning about the discovery of penicillin that first stimulated my interest in the behaviors and the destruction of microbes by the action of drugs. Learning about this giant leap forward in medicine and the way it transformed the treatment of diseases inspired me to pursue the study of microbiology. And it is not possible without sound practical knowledge. There are many universities in USA but I have chosen. as it is well known and affordable for me. And I

During my time at the University of Wisconsin- La Crosse, it was there that I not only discovered my passion for microbiology; but it was where I became aware of my career goal, to be an educator at the university level. While as a teaching assistant for a Fundamentals of Microbiology laboratory, I established that I wanted to become a professor. I want to become and educator because, I look back at how much of an impact my professors at the University of Wisconsin- La Crosse and the Medical College of Wisconsin had not only on me but my peers. It was the professors who encouraged us, taught us the future of our field, and helped us up when we fell down. I think back at all the times these professors helped me become who I am know, it I can vividly see myself reciprocating that for future students.

The overuse of antibiotics has been a problem for well over a decade. This misuse leads to many nonvisible problems arising within the human population. As the use of antibiotics increases, the number of antibiotic resistant bacteria also increases. When bacteria become resistant to an antibiotic, another antibiotic must be used to try and kill it and the cycle becomes vicious. Michael Martin, Sapna Thottathil, and Thomas Newman stated that antimicrobial resistance is, “an increasingly serious threat to global public health that requires action across all government sectors and society” (2409).