1. What words beginning with 'anti-' do you know?
2. How many food scares/health scares can you think of over the last few years? Which ones turned out to be serious?
Read infographic here: Antibiotic Resistance Reading
3. What is your reaction? Do you feel worried by the information in the infographic?
4. Do you think that this is another argument for not eating/reducing our consumption of meat, given that it is livestock farming which is the principal sector for antibiotic resistance? Is this the result of the over-industrialisation of farming?
4. The source of information for the infographic is Dutch. Is there a health authority in your country that is monitoring this situation?
5. What is the attitude of people in your country towards taking medicine? If they feel ill do they simply get hold of some antibiotics? How easy is this to do in your country? What do you think of this practice? Are patients willing to let Mother Nature take her course?
6. In some countries, doctors are criticised as being mere "prescription writers". What is your experience?
7. What do you do with any medicines “left over” from treatment? What should you do?
8. Are you tempted to switch to organic foodstuffs as a way of avoiding unwittingly consuming antibiotics?
9. Rate the following as possible solutions and say why:
a) If you get sick, try not to use antibiotics.
b) If you end up in hospital, try and get out as fast as you can.
c) All farming should be done in accordance with organic guidelines.
d) Hospitals should be audited for any past outbreaks of antibiotic-resistant infections, and this information should be made public.
e) Don't have elective surgery - just keep taking the painkillers and try and be philosophical.
f) Make the manufacture of new antibiotics more profitable for pharmaceutical companies.
g) Don't marry a farmer.
h) Wash your hands frequently.
i) Don't flush unused medicines down the toilet.
j) Go vegan.
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Situation
You are a GP at a busy doctor's surgery. Treat a patient (your teacher) who has presented himself with the symptoms of a cold and insists on being given something.
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Discuss quotes
"Time is generally the best doctor."
- Ovid
"Why doesn't Apple stop for a year and make medical devices? When people talk about technology, that's where I start to get a little hot under the collar because I know that it's the key to solving some of the world's biggest problems. Having a faster, thinner telephone is not one of the world's biggest problems."
- Luke Perry
"I am dying from the treatment of too many physicians."
- Alexander the Great
"Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food."
― Hippocrates
"My doctor said I looked like a million dollars – green and wrinkled.”
– Red Skelton
Student Handout PDF: Antibiotics