Anti anti-biotics

Once a year I put myself through a physical which usually involves my doctor getting just a bit too physical for comfort. It's amazing that in a hundred years of modern medicine that it still comes down to dropping your pants and coughing. I'm not even sure what they are checking for but there has to be a better way to tell if you got ball-cancer.
What frustrates me most though is that American doctors feel that if they don't prescribe something whenever you have an ailment. You come in with a sore throat and you get thrown on a week of antibiotics, come in with a cut on your finger and your on the same week, come in with a growth on your back and guess what they give you a week's worth of antibiotics.
First of all when did we get to the future where one pill taken twice a day can cure all ailments?
Secondly what the hell is it about 7 days? Is there some kind of magical time period for these magic pills?

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