Osler's Razor

Very well written in layman terms. I agree with the article wholeheartedly, because I tend to view a lot of things with a business mindset. I hope this article gets a lot of readers.
 

One of the problems right now is the new crop of drugs that aren't illegal. The DEA is trying to chase this stuff down, but it's changing so fast that people just end up in the ER, and the doctors are trying to figure out what the heck they took.
 

Megan-- that, and the legal ones that have been around for a while, like OxyContin. A different strategy is needed for those. The easiest one is making Opiates and some related prescription drugs illegal for use outside of hospitals.
 

Mark - that leaves out all the patients who need pain relief outside of a hospital setting in agony! With the trend for doing day surgery, and sending patients home with levels of pain that have to be felt to be believed (ankle revisions, bone spur removal, etc.) this is a totally unacceptable solution. I had major surgery to split the heel bone, screw it back together, remove 8 or so big bone spurs as day surgery!

Sent home in a boot, crutches, and lots of opiate pain pills. Trust me, non-narcotic pain relief just doesn't help.

Sent home 36 hours after a c-sec - need something besides aspirin!

Hospital stays are shorter and shorter, since no ins. or medicare will pay for anything longer.

You are way off base on this.

Lee
 

Lee-- Maybe in the end it would be cheaper to lengthen hospital stays to account for this than to pay for the cost of addiction to those pain medications, which is huge.
 

Mark -

Hospital per day = several thousand dollars, and a stay would have to be at least a week for the above surgery

Pain pills - $20 or less

Guess which choice is more likely to be made!

Lee
 

Lee,
Self-administered pain control=priceless
 

Marta - amen!

Lee
 

Ok, well... I'll admit that the narcotics problem I have the least handle on is OxyContin, etc. My idea for reform is targeted, obviously, to illegal, not legal, drugs.

Still, there is no ignoring the incredible effects of abuse of those pain drugs. Many more people die from overdose of them than all other drugs combined (and that is excluding their use in suicides).
 

Lee, I feel the need to clarify…I am against self-administered pain management and I think Big Pharma companies are just drug pushers with a license to rake in the money. The danger of self-medicating on legal narcotics doesn’t just come from the risk of becoming addicted or over-dosing, the danger of self-medicating in general comes from drug-drug interactions and drug interactions with one’s unique body chemistry. Last I checked pharmacology was not part of any regular school curriculum.