Prescribing Antibiotics: General Practitioners Dealing with “Non-Medical Issues”?

Inge Kryger Pedersen,Kim Sune Jepsen

doi:10.7577/pp.1983

Inge Kryger Pedersen, Kim Sune Jepsen

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.7577/pp.1983

Copy DOI

Abstract

The medical professions will lose an indispensable tool in clinical practice if even simple infections cannot be cured because antibiotics have lost effectiveness. This article presents results from an exploratory enquiry into “good doctoring” in the case of antibiotic prescribing at a time when the knowledge base in the healthcare field is shifting. Drawing on in-depth interviews about diagnosing and prescribing, the article demonstrates how the problem of antimicrobial resistance is understood and engaged with by Danish general practitioners. When general practitioners speak of managing “non-medical issues,” they refer to routines, clinical expertise, experiences with their patients, and decision-making based more on contextual circumstances than molecular conditions—and on the fact that such conditions can be hard to assess. This article’s contribution to knowledge about how new and global health problems challenge professional actors affirms the importance of such a research agenda and the need for further exploration of the core problems posed by transnational sociology of professions.

Highlights

The medical professions will lose an indispensable tool in clinical practice if even simple infections cannot be cured because antibiotics have lost effectiveness
Insofar as our analysis approaches the work task, prevention of antimicrobial resistance, from a “linked ecology” perspective (Abbott, 2005), yet concentrates on a microsociological and mainly mono-professional empirical field, it points to the need for further exploration of the core problems posed by transnational sociology of professions
International European surveillance suggests that the Nordic countries are among the least infected (ECDC, 2013), recent surveillance by DANMAP indicates that the public health problem of Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is accelerating: The consumption in primary healthcare accounts for 90% of the total antimicrobial consumption

Summary

Introduction

The medical professions will lose an indispensable tool in clinical practice if even simple infections cannot be cured because antibiotics have lost effectiveness. In demonstrating how the problem of AMR is understood and engaged with by Danish GPs, this article suggests that what GPs consider as “non-medical issues” are linked to important sociological areas of study about new health problems challenging professional actors, sometimes in indirect ways. Such a contribution to knowledge about GPs’ practices and reflections affirms the importance of a research agenda grounded in the jurisdiction as a dynamic view of the dominance over areas of work. For broad-spectrum agents, the increase has been 72%. (DANMAP, 2013, p. 15)

Objectives

Methods

Findings

Conclusion