Breaking The Mold: A Creative Musical Teaches About Antimicrobial Resistance

Healthcare Breaking The Mold: A Creative Musical Teaches About Antimicrobial Resistance Judy Stone Senior Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. I am an Infectious Disease specialist and author of Resilience: One Family’s Story of Hope and Triumph over Evil and of Conducting Clinical Research, the essential guide to the topic Following New! Follow this author to stay notified about their latest stories. Got it! Oct 19, 2022, 02:00am EDT | New! Click on the conversation bubble to join the conversation Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin This innovative musical has its Washington debut.

Charades Theater Imagine bringing the topic of antimicrobial resistance to life, engaging students in learning biology, history, and science through musical theater. A play is making its US premiere this week in Washington, DC, at the Atlas Center for Performing Arts in conjunction with IDWeek2022, the major annual meeting of Infectious Diseases societies. It moves to the Science Gallery at Pullman Yards in Atlanta, home of the CDC, for Nov.

1-6 performances. The concept was the brainchild of Dr. Meghan Perry , a Scottish infectious disease physician, and researcher.

She then worked with composer Robin Hiley, author Thomas Henderson, and the Charades Theatre Company to produce the unlikely musical. It was a sold-out hit at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and then was performed by students at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh and the Science Museum in London. CarriAyne Jones Parr, PhD, Head of UK Science and Innovation Network, Southeast US, explained that there was also a “partnership with the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, who gave them some funding and helped them develop the educational resources.

” They also helped shape the program so that it “could be evaluated scientifically for its ability to impact knowledge transfer. ” There are extensive teacher resources and lesson plans, all available for free! These are focused on a typical 5 th -grade curriculum and include biology—cells and microorganisms, as well as World War I and II history. They show what life was before we had antibiotics that could cure infections.

Now there is a somewhat greater focus on infection prevention and control measures as well as effective drugs and therapeutics to prevent/fight infection). In addition to the lesson plans, the free units include detailed videos so students can learn the music and choreography to stage the musical for their schools or communities. Using the story of Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin in 1928, the play takes us from the pre-antibiotic era and devastating deaths from infection in World War I to the present time.

Jones Parr said, “it’s not even been 100 years, and we’ve built this modern medical system, basically on the backbone of having antibiotics, and now we are at risk of losing them. ” MORE FOR YOU Juan Soto Contract Rejection Could Make Orioles A Better Buy Than Nationals The 8 Best Cold Weather Sleeping Bags For Chilly Adventures BFI Inclusion Chief To Spearhead New Film And TV Anti-Bullying Body Professor Dame Sally Davies is the UK Special Envoy on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) and England’s former Chief Medical Officer (CMO). She’s long been immersed in the battle against antimicrobial resistance.

Her hope for bringing the musical to the US is “to engage the public in the issue because 1. 2 million people die of AMR across the world every year. ” One critical problem is that pharmaceutical (drug) companies have largely bowed out of antibiotic development because it is risky and not adequately profitable in their eyes.

Dame Sally is encouraging a subscription model for drug development. “Britain has shown that you can do a subscription method to pull innovation of new drugs. We’ve piloted two new drugs, and we’ve got to satisfactory levels of payments,” she said.

The government and the drug companies have both agreed to the plan. The initial drugs are cefiderocol and ceftazidime–avibactam , each used only for patients with severe antibiotic resistance and limited treatment options. New antibiotics often have restricted uses to prevent further resistance from rapidly emerging and rendering them useless.

Because of these restrictions, sales are limited. Under the subscription plan, the company is ensured a fixed annual fee, regardless of the amount used. The fees are based on the National Health Service’s estimate of the value of the drugs using a measurement called quality-adjusted life years (QALYs).

This includes how much a drug or treatment “ lengthens and/or improve patients’ lives. ” In this case, Dame Sally noted that they also looked at the advantage of protecting the patient’s family from catching the drug-resistant organism. There is no small irony that while the UK is expanding its efforts to promote more limited and rational antibiotic use (aka antibiotic stewardship), Thérèse Coffey , the UK health secretary, said this week she had given leftover antibiotics to a friend.

Coffey is also proposing allowing pharmacists to prescribe antibiotics. Given the current shortage of physician practitioners in the UK and the long wait times to get care, her rash sentiment is understandable. The concern is that pharmacists are not trained diagnosticians and that there would be more overuse of antibiotics, leading to worsening resistance.

Asked about this proposal, Dame Sally noted that pharmacists could be trained to diagnose and treat specific, limited conditions, such as strep throat, following algorithms. She also suggested trials to see if this worked before adopting any changes more broadly. There is no one easy solution.

We are fighting AMR on many fronts—from the vast overuse of antibiotics in commercial meat production to over-the-counter sales in some countries and the pressures for profits from drug companies. Educating about the problem of AMR is sorely needed at all levels. This innovative approach to teaching science and history through a musical might be just what the doctor ordered.

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