Last edited by pharm_teg; 09-22-2005 at 11:45 PM. Reason: text
mrsa (methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus) has been around for 20 years or so, though the incidence is increasing. unfortunatley, some doctors are behind in understanding threrapies, and don't know that there are plenty of antibiotics that can be used to treat mrsa (vancomycin, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, tigycyline to name a few), and that anyone with mrsa in an abscess needs to be treated with muciprocin nasally (as most people that have abscesses that are positive for mrsa got it from picking their nose! staph aureus colonizes the nose in all individuals). there's also the overuse of antibiotics, specifically fluoroquinolones, in the community for anything, rather than sticking to one's guns and not calling every infection a bacterial infection.
the key is clinical suspicion.