This article focuses on nine severe injuries that are generally not diagnosable until the third to fourth week following the date of injury, including how to diagnose these severe injuries. The discovery of any of these injuries early can make a significant difference in the case outcome.
| Digital ExclusiveTreating the Common Cold
When an MD is armed only with a prescription pad, the treatment regime for the common cold is fairly predictable. Consider how 1,439 patients in 2,144 medical encounters were treated for the common cold:
Antibiotics Prescription Only -- 32%
Symptomatic Medication Prescription Only -- 6%
Antibiotics and Symptomatic Medication -- 28%
Never Filled the Prescription -- 35%
While over one-third of the patients never bothered to get the antibiotic prescriptions filled, the 60 percent who did contributed to what the authors describe as a misuse of antibiotics by MDs, which, conservatively, is a $37.5 million annual expenditure in the U.S.
SOURCE: Mainous AG, Hueston WJ, Clark JR. Antibiotics and upper respiratory infection. J Fam Pract 1996; 42:357-361.