Antimicrobials: Antibacterial agents 2017

Hours of learning: 2

Publication date: January 2017

Aim
To familiarise healthcare professionals with the antibacterial agents commonly encountered in clinical practice.

Intended learning outcomes
Having completed this course you should be able to:

• describe the differences between human (eukaryotic) cells and bacterial (prokaryotic) cells that can be exploited by antibacterial agents
• list the main bacterial cell sites on which antibacterial agents exert their bactericidal or bacteriostatic effects
• define minimum inhibitory concentration and minimum bacterial concentration – the measures of antibacterial susceptibility
• summarise the main issues for each class of commonly encountered antibacterial agent.