Physician Refused To Order Morphine

[Sue Damonas, BSN]

I went to do an inpatient Hospice eval one day and the son who was the POA wasn't going to be there till the next afternoon. So the next afternoon I got there early to wait for him and discovered that the patient was very short of breath and had coorifice rhonchi and rales. Since I couldn't officially write any orders till the POA got there I asked his nurse to page the doctor for some IV morphine and a Scopalamine patch and when the family got there I would get him started on a Morphine drip. Well, the doctor refused to order it because that's a "Hospice Med"! The family got there an hour later and the patient was made comfortable on a Morphine drip. I was so upset!! Has this happened to anyone else?

[caliotter3]

While not in a hospice or dying situation, a relative had something similar happen concerning pain medication. After major back surgery (like an all day affair that involved more than one surgical approach), a doctor refused to return a phone call when the person needed medicine (he had made a promise to be responsive to this) and the pharmacy gave them a hard time every time a prescription was filled, even calling the doctor in spite of seeing the bandaged surgical sites. Not getting the prescribing doctor, but someone else in the ER, this doctor cancelled the prescription and contacted the PCP accusing the patient of drug seeking. Who wouldn't seek pain meds after major surgery? I guess the around the body saturated wound dressings and the body brace were all a ruse. The patient reported and made formal complaints about the ER doctor who made derogatory allegations about "drug seeking". And tiring of being treated like a drug addict, this person stopped taking meds for pain, lock, stock and barrel way too soon for their condition. Anyone could see that.