How do you handle the "ones that are out for drugs"

[level1_traumaRN]

In the ER I have noticed that we have many patients that constantly want pain medicine and refuse to take the PO kind because it "dont work as fast". I am not talking about the patients who are really ill, but the ones who come to the ER and just want "pain meds". I find myself torn because I see the Hospice patients that hardly ask for anything as well as the elderly. I don't understand it.

How doyou all feel about this and how can you treat the patient without being "aggravated" in your mind?

[fsmtg]

This really does get to be an ethical dilemma that many nurses and physcians must face on a daily basis.

a qoute I once heard really sums it up. "knowing the difference between wrong and right is easy. They hard part is deciding which wrong is more right."

Do you try to get this drug seeker help for their addiction? This inevitably leading to a long drawn out confrontation. do you give them what they want, get them out of the over crowded ER and move on to someone who really needs help.

[teeituptom, BSN, RN]

Anything you do for drug abusers, just makes you an enabler for their problem. I dont worry about being an enabler. I just give them all amenu with the Daily special on it.