Ear Ache Head Ache

Our pediatrician is relocating. Just when my daughter doesn’t automatically cry at the site of her waiting room, she is closing the practice to follow her husband’s job to another state. Thus, we’ve switched over to a new doctor that my daughter says she doesn’t like. Well, I don’t like doctors as a rule myself, but I’m sure my girl will come around as this doctor is pretty nice.
We’d slated the four year check up as our first visit to the new doctor, but as life has its own schedule, my daughter got an earache just after the xmas break. As I was 50 miles away, my husband took our daughter in for the exam. Yep, infected ear. So as the doctor is writing out a prescription for antibiotics, my husband asks, “Is there any alternative?” The doctor looked up, surprised, and said that antibiotics aren’t even the recommended treatment for ear infections, and haven’t been for a couple of years now but since every parent expects the script, she always gives it to them.
Oh, this bothers me on so many levels: I am troubled by the fact that on the once-per-year occasion we took our daughter to her former pediatrician, she gave us antibiotics even though we told her we like to avoid them–never mentioning that they aren’t the currently accepted treatment for earaches. And I’m appalled that not only does this current doctor hand prescriptions out automatically, but that any doctor is giving out antibiotics when the American Academy of Pediatrics says they are not the preferred treatment for ear infections based on its 2004 guidelines. (more info: http://www.aap.org/healthtopics/earinfections.cfm) Okay, so parents have come to expect antibiotics… time to change their expectations and to save antibiotics for ailments they’ll actually treat, not add to the problem of resistant illnesses by over-prescribing them.
Yes, some parents will be a pain about it. Same ones that want antibiotics to “treat” a cold. But doctors are supposed to be the experts here, and help us parents make informed decisions. The path of least resistance isn’t going to get us very far.