How Should We Think About Clinicians’ Individual Antibiotic Stewardship Duties?

The language of antibiotic stewardship is of ten used to capture the moral importance of individual prescribers doing their part to combat antibiotic resistance. “Stewardship” as an ethics concept borrows from collective action problems—those that cannot be solved by individuals only—like those discussed in the environmental ethics literature. This article suggests that hyper focus on stewardship, however, risks misunderstanding individual prescribers’ reasons to limit antibiotic use.