I have witnessed a frustrating pattern that has gotten worse over the years. Doctors order a generous pain management regimen for patients in house, then send the patient home on Motrin or 3 days on Percocet. The patients understandably get upset, and since I am doing the discharge teaching I get the brunt of it. Most of the time, patients are not satisfied with my response and rationale. I then call the resident and ask if they can speak to the patient. At that point, they have already washed their hands of the patient, who by their own intents and purposes is or should be discharged. It's quite frustrating.
It gets worse when they add a benzo to the regimen, (first of all, IMHO anxiety while hospitalized is normal and adaptive, but some docs treat it like a problem to be extinguished.) The patients want that Ativan at home now too, and of course rinse and repeat..same scenario as the pain meds.
I am on the float pool and this is a huge problem in psych, with the docs snowing the patients and then refusing to send them home with prns or benzos.
