I watched a PBS Frontline episode last night on netflix. It's title is Hunting the Nightmare Bacteria. Anyone who has access to netflix or a PBS website that has the video should watch it. It is an excellent treatment of why we are all in the middle of a health disaster that has nothing to do with whether or not we have insurance. We are in a post antibiotic world. The film covers three cases. One is a young girl who ended up needing a lung transplant. The next a missionary in India who had a leg amputated because of trauma and brought the first instance of a resistant, species crossing gene to America. Finally they address the outbreak that almost closed the NIH to admissions. It is estimated that more Americans die of resistant bugs every year than of AIDS and the number is growing. Why don't we know? because the deaths are not labeled that way. And it gets worse. Many drug companies are getting out of the business of developing new antibiotics as it isn't cost effective for them. All of us at some time will need to deal with some infection. Educate yourselves and be proactive in choosing whether or not you want to use the antibiotics or not. If you do so choose, take the entire course. A major part of being a nurse is educating health consumers about their risks and options. Hope this is useful.