According to a study published in the journal Pain Medicine as reported in the NYT, approximately 0.1 percent of pain physicians ever face punishment or sanction for prescribing narcotics. To boot, just 3% of these actually specialized in pain control.
What to conclude from this? According to Myra Christopher, president of the Center for Practical Bioethics, how to separate the “facts from the folklore” regarding patient care, pain management, and prosecutions.
It would seem for all the examples of “Dr. Feelscared” aside that the problem of doctors too scared to give out narcotics to their patients, whether the drugs are necessary or unnecessary, would seem to be unjustified.
Summer Johnson, PhD