Presented by Dr Riati Scarborough BVSc PhD Candidate, National Centre for Antimicrobial Stewardship
Once you receive your culture and susceptibility results from a diagnostic test performed at the veterinary pathology laboratory, knowing how best to proceed next can influence the success of a treatment plan for your patient. Veterinarian and antimicrobial resistance researcher Dr Riati Scarborough has compiled a comprehensive webinar overview in which she presents tips and advice on what to do next after receiving your culture and susceptibility results – to help you help your patients.
The culture and susceptibility results show you the in vitro susceptibility to selected antimicrobials based on the bacteria or fungi that were present in your pathology sample. But as Dr Scarborough explains, what the culture and susceptibility results don’t tell you, is whether any microbial growth is related to infection, colonization or contamination, and which antimicrobial to use in your patient.
In this helpful video resource, Dr Scarborough shares her expertise to provide useful information to help guide your clinical decision making, and as she says, ‘Just because something grew, that doesn’t mean that – there is a problem, or the thing that grew caused the problem!’. She also highlights the value in choosing the lowest importance rating antimicrobial drug that you can, and how best to consider the efficacy of various antimicrobials along with incorporating consideration of both patient factors and owner factors into your treatment plan.
As Dr Scarborough leads you through the clinical decision-making process, she discusses a variety of issues to consider, providing advice on why what’s been seen in vitro in the laboratory, might not necessarily predict in vivo effects in your patient. Overall, it’s an extremely useful webinar that will be of benefit to all veterinary clinicians, and it is also another way in which the SVS Pathology Network is helping you to provide the highest quality care to your patients.
- Dosage, duration & antibiotic choices guidelines: https://vetantibiotics.fvas.unimelb.edu.au/about/resources/
- University of Melbourne Flipbook: AGVIC_A5_SmallAnimals_Flipbook.pdf (agriculture.vic.gov.au)
- Antibiotic mythbusting: 41dfb19a-87ec-4b21-adbe-8145138c0422.pdf (healius.com.au)
