At the age of 31, I knew nothing of patient advocacy; having a voice for my own healthcare simply hadn’t crossed my mind. I’ve since learned that it is essential to include patient voices in the healthcare system. When I was prescribed a preventive antibiotic for a root canal I, like most Americans, thought nothing of it. I was no stranger to antibiotics and considered them perfectly harmless. I didn’t realize that while antibiotics save lives, they do carry risks, and taking them inappropriately has consequences. Within a few weeks of my root canal, I was hospitalized with an infection
