This blog post is written by UNC undergraduate student Randall John, who spent the spring 2019 semester working with the IGHID’s Joseph Tucker, MD, PhD, at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
What is Antimicrobial Resistance?
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a major global public health concern. The overuse and misuse of antibiotics leads to the development of antimicrobial resistance. This diminishes the efficacy of antibiotics, limits treatment options, and places a serious burden on healthcare systems across the world. Therefore, it is necessary to increase awareness and understanding of rational antibiotic use and prescribing, use of clinical diagnostics, and AMR. However, few educational resources exist related to AMR and diagnostics, creating an urgent need to develop enhanced learning materials.
How Can You Help?
The International Diagnostics Centre at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine is organizing an open challenge crowdsourcing contest to create open-access AMR resources. In this contest, we are asking participants to submit multiple-choice questions (MCQs), infographics, and/or images related to AMR. The focus should be on antimicrobial resistance, but we are particularly interested in examples that highlight the role of clinical diagnostics in AMR. The goal of the contest is to engage the public to think more critically about this major public health issue and obtain urgently needed resources on AMR that can then be shared with and used by medical students, physicians, infectious disease researchers, and other healthcare professionals.
By submitting entries, you will be contributing to the global fight against AMR. Additionally, your entries will be reviewed by experts in the field of public health and medicine, allowing you to tap into existing networks of AMR specialists. People who submit exceptional entries may win prizes such as an iRoomba, Kindle Paperwhite, and Amazon ECHO. Lastly, through our partnership with Figure 1, top submissions may be featured and promoted to a wider audience via the Figure 1 platform.
The deadline for submissions is June 15. To learn more about the contest and specific guidelines for submitting, visit our website at http://www.seshglobal.org/AMREducationChallenge or send us an email at amrinfographicmcq@gmail.com. Send us your entries!
