Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Jul 30;1(1):e17.
doi: 10.1017/ash.2021.181. eCollection 2021.

Antimicrobial ethicists: Making ethics explicit in antimicrobial stewardship

Christina F Yen  1   2 , James B Cutrell  3
Affiliations

Antimicrobial ethicists: Making ethics explicit in antimicrobial stewardship

Christina F Yen et al. Antimicrob Steward Healthc Epidemiol. .

Abstract

Antimicrobial prescribing and the associated discipline of antimicrobial stewardship have inherent ethical and moral dimensions. We contend that the explicit, formal application of ethical principles and frameworks can strengthen and further justify the value of antimicrobial stewardship programs and their work. To illustrate the value of this process, we highlight 3 ethical scenarios that antimicrobial stewardship programs regularly encounter at the prescriber, institutional, and societal levels, and we analyze these scenarios using the Beauchamp and Childress biomedical ethics framework.

Keywords: Antimicrobial resistance; Antimicrobial stewardship; Medical ethics.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

All authors report no conflicts of interest relevant to this article.

References

    1. Nobel lectures physiology or medicine 1942–1962. Nobel Prize website. https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/fleming-lecture.pdf. Accessed June 12, 2021.
    1. Spellberg B, Srinivasan A, Chambers HF. New societal approaches to empowering antibiotic stewardship. JAMA. 2016;315:1229–1230. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Antibiotic resistant threats in the United States. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. https://cdc.gov/drugresistance/biggest-threats.html. Updated March 2, 2021. Accessed May 13, 2021.
    1. Antimicrobial resistance. World Health Organization website. https://www.who.int/health-topics/antimicrobial-resistance. Accessed June 1, 2021
    1. O’Neill, J. Antimicrobial resistance: tackling a crisis for the health and wealth of nations. Review on Antimicrobial Resistance Published December 2014.

LinkOut - more resources