> Regarding (a) - do you know that I've never been told why I need to finish my antibiotics? Drug therapies have specific regimens that need to be respected in

> Regarding (a) - do you know that I've never been told why I need to finish my antibiotics? Drug therapies have specific regimens that need to be respected in order to ensure the highest degree of success. An average regimen for penicillins (penicillin-derivatives) is 7 days because that's how many days it takes for the ATB to kill the bacterial infection. Now all the above is the N-th level of abstraction. If you really want to know what's on you need to start doing evaluations. You need data like from the patient like: - Age - Kg - Health state (liver, nephrons, stomach, allergies, etc.) - History the specific class of ATBs (how did your body and the infection react to this class of ATB in the past?) - Other medication (are there interactions with other drugs a patient might be taking?) - Food (e.g. you shouldn't eat St. John's Wort while on drugs, because it's a CYP3A4 inducer and so on and so forth...) - etc. And it goes further down the rabbit hole depending on the case. So, I of course prefer doctors who are big on explaining what's happening, but I understand those who don't. The thing is that once the doctor starts talking ,you will probably start asking why, especially if you're an engineer who wants to put everything into context. At some point you'll just won't be able to understand - which means he'll have to make silly analogies, even more explanation, etc. Add to that you might have been his 20th patient that day and you get the point. On the other hand, if you pay for it, you should be able to get a doctor which gives you the appropriate amount of care/explanations.