Are we adequately treating pain?

[ag01medic]

I just watched an episode of Trauma Life in the ER and Code Blue on Discovery health and observed two different cases.

#1 Was a young boy (prob 6 or so) with an almost full amputation of his left arm, midline humerous area due to a boating accident. It was pretty heart wrenching hearing this boy cry and tell his dad that its hurts so bad. He was given 2 of morphine pre-hospital and additional on arrival.

#2 Was a ~35 y/o female involved in an MVA with a femur fracture of her left leg. This lady was in some extreme pain and was very voval about it. The Chief Surgical Resident was pretty pompass in my opinion and finally ordered 2 mg of morphine, just prior to them putting her into a traction splint. Needless to say, she screemed the entire time. Why?

Now, I understand the argument of of masking pain, but how can we let our patients writhe pain??? Research has shown that we under treat pain. Does anyone else have any experiences or thoughts to share?

[dcampbell]

No, we're absolutely not treating pain effectively.

The saddest thing about this, ladies and gentlemen, is that some doctors are afraid of what the government will do to them, so they don't adequately treat pain. The doctors aren't in charge of it all anymore- the government is. The FDA, as my wife's physician says, is practically riding the backs of physicians from general practitioners to pain specialists to cut down on the amount of pain medication they give patients. That, and requiring extensive documentation as to exactly why Patient A is on a particular medicine regimen. This is particularly tru in the case of chronic pain.

For some reason the government thinks it knows better than the physicians about how exactly to treat pain.

vamedic4

Would this get worst under "government health care" /single payer/universal health care ect. ? If the goverment is paying would they feel they should have the ultimate say over how things are done especially since there seems to be a push to stop prescription drug abuse. For example would doctors be forced to practice cookbook medicine with pain control--for kidney stones only "blank-pain med" will be allowed to be given , for broken shoulders only "blank-pain med" will be prescribed ect.?

[LeesieBug]

So I take her to the hospital closest to us, 3 blocks away, notorious for being a band aid station. Figure they can at least give her some Toradol. Nope, the doc said, basically, you've got a headache because you're fat. He said, she has a small throat, therefore because she is overweight, therefore she can't breathe well and that causes her headache. Said to take Tylenol, that's what helps him. This is after we had said she was taking Advil, tylenol Sinus, even gave her one of my Imitrex with no relief.

Oh....my....Lord:madface: I am so sorry.....THAT is awful

I have to say, I am very pleased with most of our docs. They do a great job of treating pain. It is VERY rare that I get turned down when asking for an order for additional pain meds for someone who is not being well controlled.