Dr. Ozner,
Standards of medical practice deemed the routine use of post-operative antibiotics as poor technique. Certain pre-existing condition, especially those of the heart valves, some kidney disorders and with certain procedures, such as where there is to be implantation of foreign device, call for the appropriate use of antibiotics, but these should be given during and/or just prior to surgery, and sometimes continued afterward. The preemptive use of antibiotics as a routine bespeaks the lack of skill of the surgeon, or at least his own confidence in that skill.
Of no less of a problem is the toll, in general, that the over use and mis-use of antibiotics places on society as a whole, through the resulting unintended development of resistant strains of bacteria. Except for specific contditions as I have allude to above, the use of antibiotics should be reserved for actual infections, and should be narrowly targeted to the specific infectious agent. Those surgeons who use them routinely serve not only their patients, but all of us poorly.
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