Dear Z-Pack,
We’ve had a good run together. But, my dearest azithromycin, it is time for us to end our love affair. It’s not you. It’s me.
When I met you, I thought you were the most wonderful thing in the world—and you were. Your perspective—your spectrum, if you will—is so broad. You are so well tolerated that everyone loved you, even my grandmother.
You even have a great nickname! Z-Pack! Z-Pack! How great it was to tell everyone about my beloved Z-Pack!
We went on great adventures together. But then, I took you on some serious misadventures. I diagnosed “sinusitis” in every patient with the sniffles. I gave you to everybody with “bronchitis,” even though I knew it was viral. I told everybody with a cough that they could have “atypical pneumonia,” when I knew it was probably just a cough. I even took you to places you should never have been, using you to treat ear infections and strep throat when Penny Cillin and her friends were MUCH better for the job.
And, I always knew you were a cutie, but unfortunately your QT prolongation just proved too much for me, and for the people around me.
I messed things up for us and, so now, it’s time for us to break up. We’re just not right for each other anymore. I took things too far. I can’t use you for Streptococcus pneumoniae anymore! Sinusitis, either. I need to be able to do these things so it’s time for me to move on.
This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t stay friends. We’ll always have bona fide atypical pneumonia. We’ll always have chlamydia. And don’t forget that you always brighten the lives of people with asthma and COPD with your beautiful anti-inflammatory smile.
But, we can’t go on the way we have up until now. It’s not right for either of us.
I will always remember the great days we had together and I will always love you.
Yours truly,
PCP
