Science AMA Series: We’re Ghinwa Dumyati, professor of Infectious Diseases and Erica Dobson, Infectious Diseases Clinical Pharmacist at the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, New York. We are here to talk about antibiotics – the good, the bad and what the future holds. AMA!

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Hi Reddit!

I’m Ghinwa Dumyati, M.D., professor of Infectious Diseases at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) and director of the communicable diseases surveillance and prevention program at URMC’s Center for Community Health. For the past five years I’ve led the Rochester Patient Safety Collaborative, a citywide effort that has reduced Clostridium difficile (C. diff) infections at four local hospitals by more than 30 percent. An important part of reducing C. diff, which can cause life-threatening diarrhea and inflammation of the colon, is reducing the inappropriate use of antibiotics. We worked with physicians, nurses, pharmacists and others to improve how antibiotics are prescribed. With a grant from New York State, I’m also working to reduce the use of unnecessary antibiotics in nursing home patients, who are at high risk for C. diff. My next frontier, in collaboration with Erica Dobson, is curbing the overprescribing of antibiotics in the outpatient setting – doctor’s offices, dentist offices, emergency departments and urgent care clinics.

Hi Reddit! I’m Erica Dobson, Pharm.D., an Infectious Diseases Clinical Pharmacist at the University of Rochester Medical Center. I’m a board certified pharmacotherapy specialist (BCPS) and an American Academy of HIV Medicine HIV-certified pharmacist (AAHIVP). I work with health care providers to ensure patients get the most appropriate antibiotic for their condition and take the antibiotic for the right amount of time. I’m partnering with Dr. Dumyati to bring these efforts into the community. Antibiotics are lifesaving medications, but inappropriate use leads to antibiotic resistance, one of the world’s most pressing health threats. If we don’t address this problem now, we will face a future in which bacterial diseases are untreatable and can be fatal. We’re here to answer questions about antibiotics, including: why they are important; what they should and shouldn’t be used for; how we can curb the use of inappropriate antibiotics and why it’s important to curb the use; what the future looks like if we fail to use these medicines judiciously; and more.

We’ll start answering questions at 2 pm. Ask us anything!

">Science AMA Series: We’re Ghinwa Dumyati, professor of Infectious Diseases and Erica Dobson, Infectious Diseases Clinical Pharmacist at the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, New York. We are here to talk about antibiotics – the good, the bad and what the future holds. AMA!