UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — University Health Services (UHS), a unit of Penn State Student Affairs, will host a One Health seminar with the Pennsylvania Department of Health and the Pennsylvania Consortium for Antibiotic Stewardship, covering the topic of antibiotic resistance and the threat it poses to health care today. The seminar will run in tandem with Antibiotic Awareness Week in Pennsylvania, which is set for Nov. 12-18.
The seminar, which is free and open to the Penn State community, will take place from 8 to 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 13, in Freeman Auditorium in the HUB-Robeson Center at University Park. Registration begins at 7:30 a.m. and closes at 8 a.m.
The seminar will feature speakers Patrick McDermott, director of the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System, and Dr. Jennifer Han, assistant professor of medicine and epidemiology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
Topics covered will include the tracking of antibiotic resistance in the age of genomics and antibiotic prescribing in ambulatory care: advancing antimicrobial stewardship for common conditions.
Continuing education credits for multiple professions also will be provided upon request.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website, “antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest public health challenges of our time.” At least 2 million people in the United States get an antibiotic-resistant infection each year; of those cases, nearly 23,000 are fatal.