So here we are. Half a dozen GPs, a bacteriologist, a prescribing adviser, and a nurse or two. All together in a stuffy upstairs room, giving up an afternoon of our working week and all learning about community acquired infection. Swine Flu, C. Difficile, MRSA, drug-resistant TB, these are the massed ranks of the 21st century's Black Death. I calculate that the GPs here have about 120 years clinical experience in total. So I may be wrong but I reckon this bunch of doctors will have consulted and treated 1.3 million patients between them. No wonder they look tired.
We learn about C. Difficile, MRSA, the slippery Staphylococcus and how to prescribe first-line antibiotics — those that won't reliably do the job but are cheap. We find out when the lab wants a sample (usually after their recommended antibiotic has failed and the patient has got worse). I have sat around tables listening to different doctors talking about infections and antibiotics ever since I started …