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    The state of Maryland is debating legislation that could require new guidelines to combat the growing rate of fatal infections contracted from hospitals. The article is interesting because it brings to light once again a problem that has been growing for some time: is the current way we practice medicine adequate?
    There are really two problems with how we practice modern medicine. The first problem is that hospitals are full of people who are sick and people who have been exposed to people who are sick. Hospital staffs, no matter how careful they are, cannot help but be the carriers of infection and disease from people who have those infections and diseases to those who do not.
    The question becomes whether all of those infected and diseased people should even be in hospitals. Perhaps an even greater question should be whether those people should be in hospitals with hundreds or thousands of other infected and sick people. Dispersing disease and sickness by reducing the size of hospitals and creating more treatment centers is on potential solution. Another solution might be to treat some sickness at home.
    The second problem is that modern medicine medicates way too much, especially when it comes to the use of antibiotics. The reason that so many types of bacteria are resistant to antibiotics is because, in many cases, every time a patient is sick, they are given an antibiotic to treat the sickness, whether the antibiotic is appropriate or not. This habit ultimately leads to resistance, which is then compounded by the first problem.
    Whatever the problems, the medical community needs to start concentrating on a solution soon. The source article states evidence that 2 million people are annually infected in hospitals, and 90,000 of them die. That is a 45% fatality rate. How long can that kind of reality be maintained?
DLH
Wade wrote,
I especially agree with the para about antibiotics.
Link | February 21st, 2006 at 754