Outpatient Surgery Magazine, providing current information on Surgical Services, Surgical Facility Administration, Outpatient Surgery News and Trends, OR Excellence and more.
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4 2 S U P P L E M E N T T O O U T P A T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E J U N E 2 0 1 6 right in there. How do you know that the pharmacist who sends syringes to the OR isn't skimming? And who's going to watch over our shoulders all day? It's not as though you can have a camera pointed at everybody in the facility that handles drugs. • Hidden in plain sight. A critical risk with our substance-abusing colleagues, especially those with whom we've worked closely or over the long term, is that we may start rationalizing their behavior and making excuses for them. "John's acting weird because he and Mary have been having problems." There are warn- ing signs, and we should be acting on them. Substance abuse has a progressive effect, and left untreated it can be fatal. Besides the obvious risks to patient safety, narcotics quite literally take away the body's desire to breathe. • Facing facts. There are a number of reasons why providers may hesitate to ask for help. From a physician's viewpoint, there's an overachiever's invincibility syndrome ("I can quit any time") and a massive sense of self-worth locked up in the educational and professional levels they've reached. An arrest, a revoked license would cost us our income and our ability to help people. The shame, embarrassment and financial fallout make it difficult to declare an addiction. But isn't walking up to the chief and saying, "I've got a problem, and I need help," better than being found out, or found comatose or dead with a needle in your arm? • Road to recovery. Recovery is hard but it's possible, and the prognosis for complete recovery is good. Addiction treatment programs work, especially when they include peer monitoring, oral opiate blockers, and support from family and friends. Research shows that anesthesiologists who are clean for 1 year have a 90% success rate from then on. That's only 1 in 10 falling back into substance abuse. After 2 years, it's 98%, or 1 in 50. OSM