Two Kansas City medical students are trying to increase awareness of the CDC’s recommended therapy that would help in the treatment of STDs.
It’s known as Expedited Partner Therapy – a therapy that Missouri participates in but faces legal obstacles in Kansas.
EPT gives doctors permission to write prescriptions for a patient with an STD and their partner, even if their partner has yet to be diagnosed or will not get treatment. 42 states have legalized this practice. However, Kansas law said it’s “potentially allowable.”
EPT advocates said Kansas’ ambiguous language makes it confusing to medical professionals and all of them need additional education about this form of treatment.
Mianna Armstrong, medical student at Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences, said doctors might not be keen on the idea of writing a prescription to someone they’ve never seen before.
Armstrong, along with medical student Megan McMurray, looked at the increase in STDs happening nationwide and agreed solutions like the EPT could help stop the trend and reverse it.
McMurray said if you treat one person but not the other, re-infection is just going to occur.
McMurray and Armstrong said every state should allow doctors the right to treat both partners for an STD. Armstrong said it would make doctors feel comfortable about using the EPT idea.
The student’s work was picked up by the American Osteopathic Association, which then drafted a resolution that asks that Expedited Partner Therapy be legalized as noted by the CDC.
The medical students’ article was published in the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association.
Written by Mark Riegel, MD
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