Addicts!!! NURSES How do you seperate addicts from pts. who really are in pain?!

[chasemelony]

Ok let me make this short and straight to the point...

I am currently in nursing school for my BSN, and at the same time I have sickle cell disease. Basically I've been the patient plenty of times and now I will soon play the roll of a nurse (a good one at that). I am really tired of Nurses and especially Docs who think pts. with my disease are drug addicts and only want a high. We go thru serious and I mean SERIOUS pain. It is nothing to joke around with because I know exactly how it feels. I've experienced ignornant docs that try and make it seem like I am lying. This is a situation that ****** me off. I didn't ask to be born with sickle cell but i'm dealing with it just like everyone else in the world that has something they didn't ask for. Instead of nurses and docs to be on the pts. side to make things run smoother, they want to be judgemental. I really wish there was a mechine that had all of the diseases in the world which you can go into and live a life of someone else suffing for one disease or another just for a day, and maybe nurses and docs will change their nasty attitudes towards pts. in pain.

I want to thank all the nurses that have been there for me in the hospital because not everyone is like that. There were really sweet nurses who were caring and understood my situation. Again thanks too all those nurses who truely care for people.

Now I am not trying to start a riot, I just want to get peoples comments, ideas, respones, opinions etc. on either how they know a pt. is telling the truth about pain or what they think in general. Thanks in advance for all the responses:nurse:

[BCgradnurse, MSN, RN, NP]

Katie 91,

I respectfully disagree with you. I believe it is my job to make a judgment as to what care is best for the patient. I don't believe contributing to and enabling their addiction is in their best interest. It's true, chronic pain patients do acclimate to their pain, but when they won't go to pain managment or other specialists they are referred to (because urgent care is not for chronic pain mangement), and jump from provider to provider in my clinic, then I have solid reason to doubt their motives. And I did mean objective, not subjective. Objective is looking at something without bias, subjective is letting your personal feelings play a part in your evaluation. Sadly, patients do lie and manipulate the system, which makes you suspicious of everyone. I believe prescribing 90 percocet to a patient that has exhibited questionable behavior surround narcotics is wrong, and it's not just up to law enforcement to deal with these people. I shouldn't be contributing to the problem in the first place. I take my prescriptive privileges very seriously, and consider prescribing narcotics to a known or highly suspicious addict just as dangerous as giving 90 klonopin to a patient with known suicidal ideation. I stand by what I said 100%.

[Katie91]

BCgradnurse,

Thank you for your reply and I do respect your stance on the subject. It is certainly all of our responsibilities to do what we feel is best for the patient and quite frankly, the licenses we've worked so hard for! Listening to our gut is always the best bet