Reflections on Medicine & Life
4 min read…Generations of medical students learn early and repeatedly in their training to begin the description of a clinical case with demographic information. As in, “AH is a 52 year old divorced, white female who presents with the chief
2 min read…I just returned from my first National Rx Drug Abuse & Heroin Summit in Atlanta. I was registered for the summit last year too but had to cancel my plans at the last minute after my wife needed
0 min read…We lost more than 33,000 Americans to opioid overdoses in 2015. Over 50,000 succumbed to all overdoses. That’s more than were murdered, killed themselves or died in car accidents that year. Yet, we can’t make up our mind.
A physician traces the evolution of the opioid epidemic while coming face-to-face with the practical reality of America’s swing away from opioid prescribing. Making pain the 5th vital sign directly led to our irrational opioids prescribing. Now, we are prone to the same lack of nuance and clinical judgment in the opposite direction.