Discussion postAntimicrobial stewardship

Encourage the judicious use of antibiotics Essay

Two questions joined by one role. Resistance is why global and domestic surveillance are connected at all, and the family nurse practitioner sits at the point where prescribing and reporting meet.

Editorial process

Last reviewed · August 22, 2026

Written by

Maren Caldwell

MSN, RN, CNE

Medical-surgical nursing, pharmacology and NCLEX preparation

Reviewed by

Dr. Tessa Redmond

DNP, RN, CNE

Evidence-based practice and clinical education

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Interpret the task
Assignment instructions
Deliverables
Proposed outline
Research plan
Reference shortlist
Final review

Resistance is what joins the two questions

The two questions look separate and are not, so say what joins them in the first paragraph. Antimicrobial resistance is what makes local prescribing a global matter: a resistant organism selected in one clinic travels, and surveillance systems exist to detect that movement. Once you have said that, both halves have a spine, and the family nurse practitioner's role becomes obvious rather than asserted, because the primary care prescriber sits exactly at the point where the prescribing decision and the reportable finding meet. It is worth grounding the scale early too, because the policy half reads abstract without it: a large share of outpatient antibiotic prescriptions are unnecessary or wrong in agent or duration, and outpatient prescribing is where most human antibiotic use happens. That makes primary care the setting where stewardship has most to gain, which is exactly where the family nurse practitioner works.

For the policy half, be concrete about levers rather than calling for awareness. Nurses and nursing organisations can push for stewardship programmes with prescriber-level feedback, delayed or back-up prescribing for respiratory infections, point-of-care testing that shortens the diagnostic gap, standing order sets that default to guideline-concordant choices and durations, patient education addressing the expectation of an antibiotic, and inclusion of stewardship in nursing curricula and certification. Organisations add what individuals cannot: position statements, regulatory comment, and pressure for prescribing data to be published. On surveillance, describe the actual relationship, which runs both ways. Global networks aggregate national data and give early warning of organisms and patterns not yet seen domestically, while domestic laboratory and notifiable disease reporting is what those global figures are made of. Then name what the practitioner actually does: recognise and report notifiable conditions, submit specimens for culture and susceptibility rather than treating empirically forever, use local antibiograms, and counsel travellers.

Likely learning objectives

Explain resistance as the mechanism connecting local prescribing to global surveillance.
Name specific stewardship policy levers rather than general awareness measures.
Describe the two-way relationship between global and domestic surveillance.
Locate the family nurse practitioner's role at the prescribing and reporting junction.

Assignment instructions

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Review every instruction before using the planning guidance that follows.

Examine how might nurses and nursing organizations improve policies to encourage the judicious use of antibiotics in humans? Identify the correlation between global disease surveillance and domestic disease surveillance, and the significant role the family nurse practitioner plays. You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes. Encourage the judicious use of antibiotics Essay Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages. Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor. The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.

Course-wide instructions that accompany this question

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS Discussion Questions (DQ) Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words. Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source. One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words. I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses. Weekly Participation Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately. In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies. Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work). Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week. APA Format and Writing Quality Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required). Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation. I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition. Use of Direct Quotes I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly. As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content. It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source. LopesWrite Policy For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me. Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes. Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own? Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score. Late Policy The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies. Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances. If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect. I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension. As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading. Communication Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me: Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class. Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours. Encourage the judicious use of antibiotics Essay

Turn the brief into deliverables

01An explicit statement of what links the two questions.
02Policy levers available to nurses individually.
03Levers available only to organisations.
04The two-way relationship between global and domestic surveillance.
05Specific FNP actions in both stewardship and surveillance.
06Sources for the stewardship and surveillance claims.