Prescribing opioids: Balancing pain relief and addiction prevention haunted my early days in medicine

The attorney general of Oklahoma recently charged a doctor with second-degree murder in the overdose-related deaths of five of her patients. In describing these charges, AG Mike Hunter said:

“Nichols prescribed patients, who entrusted their well-being to her, a horrifyingly excessive amount of opioid medications. Nichols’ blatant disregard for the lives of her patients is unconscionable.”

Horrifyingly excessive. Those words stopped me in my tracks because they could easily have described the first time I prescribed opioids on my own.

I’m starting my career as a doctor as the in the U.S. It puts me in the middle of wanting to honor and treat the pain my patients tell me they feel while sometimes having to count what’s in their prescription bottles to verify they are taking the prescribed dose and not more.