Abstract:
A multisite survey of South African (SA) medical students’ perceptions
and knowledge of antibiotic resistance (ABR) and appropriate
prescribing by Wasserman et al., published in this edition of the
SAMJ, demonstrates that our final-year medical undergraduates are
clearly inadequately prepared for practice. Moreover, crucial gaps in
knowledge and poor understanding of antibiotic stewardship (AS)
and infection control, vary geographically. This first-in-kind crosssectional
survey of the preparedness of final-year medical students to
prescribe antibiotics identified several enablers that necessitate alternative
educational strategies and interventions that could decisively
affect the prescribing by graduates. In keeping with a recent study of
final-year SA pharmacy students, by far the majority of respondents
reported that they would prefer more education on appropriate antibiotic
use. In fact, less than two-thirds reported being familiar with
the term ‘antibiotic stewardship’. More disconcerting, only a third of
respondents felt confident to prescribe antibiotics, with similar proportions
across institutions.
