I find it interesting because strep is very easy to test for and very easy to cure (for the most part - although the test failed in this case), but I've seen su

I find it interesting because strep is very easy to test for and very easy to cure (for the most part - although the test failed in this case), but I've seen such a wide variety of responses to it. When I was young, the doctors would always test and almost always prescribe antibiotics. Initially they gave shots, which of course I hated as a kid, but they were effective and very fast - within a few days I'd be better. Then they switched to multiple week courses of pills, which also worked but left you sick a lot longer. (Now I wish they'd go back to shots.) Then something weird happened - they quit testing and started guessing. A quick glance down the throat followed by either "May be strep, here's a prescription." or "Might go away on its own. Come back in a couple weeks if it hasn't gone away." I know people who ended up hospitalized because of this. Even if it might not get worse, why make them suffer extra weeks, miss school/work, and risk it getting worse when it could so easily be tested and treated with a cheap, readily-available cure? I wonder why testing and applying an appropriate response to test results fell out of fashion in general. How much more advanced might psychiatric medicine be if doctors generally did test like scientists (not just for strep, but whatever) instead of guessing like astrologers? There's probably a lot that could have already been discovered.