RAEF2003
02-19-2003, 09:44 AM
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A call for compassion
A group of doctors rallies to fight legal and societal barriers keeping patients from getting the pain management they need
By Carolyn Poirot
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
Shannon O'Brien, 35, was at the drive-up window of her neighborhood Walgreens pharmacy in Tacoma, Wash., waiting to pick up her prescription for Percocet when two police officers dragged her out of her car, handcuffed her and took her to jail.
"I kept asking, what's going on? What did I do? I had no idea why they were arresting me," O'Brien says.
When asked about the prescription, O'Brien told the officers that she has brain cancer and that her medical information card was in her wallet.
"They were going through my purse, but they wouldn't even look at my medical card," O'Brien said in a telephone interview. "I was in hysterics, crying, very upset and very embarrassed, shocked and humiliated,"
The pharmacist on duty had called the police when he couldn't reach O'Brien's doctor at the University of Washington Medical Center to validate her prescription for the painkiller, according to a lawsuit filed Jan. 23.
Despite the fact that her neurosurgeon faxed her a letter to take to her arraignment the next day, O'Brien says the judge mandated drug-abuse education as a condition for her release. The felony fraud charge was dropped only after her doctor contacted the Pierce County prosecutor's office directly to verify that she had brain cancer and needed the narcotic pain reliever.
O'Brien's case illustrates the fact that pain treatment in this country is a major problem for doctors and their patients -- and it's getting worse, say experts. Patients are not receiving the best possible pain management because of a variety of factors, including lack of education on the part of patients and doctors and legal barriers that sometimes limit doctors' ability to give patients what they need. As a result, what suffers in our health care system is compassion.
"Somebody has said the war on drugs has turned into a war on patients, and I think that's true," says Dr. C. Stratton Hill, founder of the Pain Service at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
A call for compassion
A group of doctors rallies to fight legal and societal barriers keeping patients from getting the pain management they need
By Carolyn Poirot
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
Shannon O'Brien, 35, was at the drive-up window of her neighborhood Walgreens pharmacy in Tacoma, Wash., waiting to pick up her prescription for Percocet when two police officers dragged her out of her car, handcuffed her and took her to jail.
"I kept asking, what's going on? What did I do? I had no idea why they were arresting me," O'Brien says.
When asked about the prescription, O'Brien told the officers that she has brain cancer and that her medical information card was in her wallet.
"They were going through my purse, but they wouldn't even look at my medical card," O'Brien said in a telephone interview. "I was in hysterics, crying, very upset and very embarrassed, shocked and humiliated,"
The pharmacist on duty had called the police when he couldn't reach O'Brien's doctor at the University of Washington Medical Center to validate her prescription for the painkiller, according to a lawsuit filed Jan. 23.
Despite the fact that her neurosurgeon faxed her a letter to take to her arraignment the next day, O'Brien says the judge mandated drug-abuse education as a condition for her release. The felony fraud charge was dropped only after her doctor contacted the Pierce County prosecutor's office directly to verify that she had brain cancer and needed the narcotic pain reliever.
O'Brien's case illustrates the fact that pain treatment in this country is a major problem for doctors and their patients -- and it's getting worse, say experts. Patients are not receiving the best possible pain management because of a variety of factors, including lack of education on the part of patients and doctors and legal barriers that sometimes limit doctors' ability to give patients what they need. As a result, what suffers in our health care system is compassion.
"Somebody has said the war on drugs has turned into a war on patients, and I think that's true," says Dr. C. Stratton Hill, founder of the Pain Service at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.