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Medical Education for Pain and Addiction: Making Progress toward Answering a Need

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Sidney H. Schnoll  and
James Finch
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Extract

Pain is one of the most frequent presenting symptoms for patients who come to a physician's office. Despite the frequency of this presentation, little consistent, systematic information is provided to medical students or physicians about the treatment of pain. In addition, relatively little information is given about the recognition and prevention of drug abuse and about how to prescribe analgesics rationally to minimize the chances for abuse. This lack of educational preparation for both pain and addiction contributes to significant fear and inability on the part of health professionals to diagnose and treat both conditions. It creates a barrier of fear to prescribe adequate doses of pain medications for patients who present with both acute and chronic pain problems. Inadequate medicating can be caused by the physician's overriding worry about creating addiction in a patient. Morgan has called this problem “opiophobia.”

Type
Article
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 22 , Issue 3 , Fall 1994 , pp. 252 - 256
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 1994

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References

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