Antibiotic Awareness Week 2025

The Shared Responsibility of Combating Antimicrobial Resistance

For those of us who work in healthcare, antimicrobial resistance is not an abstract threat. We are keenly aware of the thousands of patients who die each year from multidrug-resistant infections in the United States. As a physician assistant with a special interest in transplant and immunocompromised infectious diseases, I often witness this reality firsthand. These patients are among the most vulnerable: their immune systems are suppressed, and many have had significant antibiotic exposure throughout their lifetime. When one of these patients develops an infection with a multidrug-resistant organism, treatment options can be alarmingly limited. In some cases, we are forced to combine older or less well-tolerated drugs, or use costly newer agents reserved for only the most resistant pathogens. These scenarios remind us that resistance is not a future problem – it is here now – and it’s affecting some of our sickest patients.

The fight against antimicrobial resistance is one of the defining challenges of modern medicine, and it is a fight that no single provider or specialty can manage alone. Resistant infections prolong hospitalizations, drive up healthcare costs, and strain already vulnerable patients and families. While the development of novel drugs and diagnostics are essential, the most immediate and effective tool we have is stewardship.

In my role on the multidisciplinary inpatient consult team, stewardship means facilitating discussions with primary teams about whether antibiotics are truly needed, ensuring cultures are collected to guide therapy decisions, and reviewing results daily to stop or de-escalate agents when possible. It also means having honest conversations with patients and families about why an antibiotic may not always be the right choice. These seemingly small decisions add up to powerful steps in preserving antibiotic effectiveness for the next patient who truly needs it.

By identifying these opportunities to change our practice, we can each contribute to mitigating the harm of antimicrobial resistance. Pharmacists, physicians, advanced practice providers, nurses, infection preventionists, environmental services staff, and hospital leadership all play critical roles in this effort. Patients themselves are partners too, when they understand and support the rationale for careful antibiotic use. This Antimicrobial Awareness Week, I am reminded that stewardship is not just a program or policy, it is a commitment made daily by every member of the healthcare team. Together, we can safeguard antibiotics for today’s patients and preserve them for future generations.

Sarah Kirsch, PA-C

Sarah Kirsch, PA-C; Infectious Diseases Physician Assistant; UK HealthCare, University of Kentucky