Why are we addicted to talking about opioids rather than helping people with chronic pain?

For years, doctors and those learning to practice medicine were told pain is “the fifth vital sign” and to treat it aggressively – including with opioids, "if that’s what it takes.” A consequent rise in opioid prescribing contributed to the devastating opioid crisis. Then the pendulum swung in the opposite direction, hard, with physicians cutting off opioid prescribing to patients, often without their consent. That too led to suffering with many deaths by suicide. What do these two seemingly opposing trends share in common? Both reflect a failure to embrace current knowledge about chronic pain and to bring compassion and caring to people who are suffering. Co-hosts Saul Weiner and Stefan Kertesz discuss the implications from two perspectives: Medical learners are still taught to treat chronic pain like a simple bodily injury (“somatically”) with the caveat to avoid opioids, spurring apathy and frustration. Stefan, an addiction medicine specialist who has been conducting a national study of suicides related to forced opioid tapers, argues that we have “become addicted to talking about opioids” rather than about all the good we could do if we applied current knowledge and compassion to help people who are suffering. 

From the 1940 to the 1970’s, medicine went from an almost exclusively male club to a profession in which women physicians were commonplace.  Our physician guest is Dr. Anne Walling, who has written a book about the experiences of 37 women who attended a Midwestern medical school, Women in Medicine: Stories from the Girls in White This was a time when pornographic images appeared in lecture slides, and sexual harassment and discrimination in the job market were ubiquitous.  Despite the misogyny, the women interviewed nearly all expressed gratitude that they were able to have such meaningful, rewarding, and stimulating careers. Our guest told us that her interviewees described reunions where male colleagues seemed burned out and cynical, while many of these women remained upbeat and excited about their medical work.  What can we learn from the story of women’s entry into mainstream medicine? How has the profession been changed (or not) by their presence?

Medical educators generally acknowledge the importance of training doctors who care for the whole patient rather than just treat the disease. Most medical school curricula attempt to teach to that philosophy, but how successful are they, really?    Our guest, Robert C. Smith, is a physician and author, who trained with Dr. George Engel, founder of the biopsychosocial model. In his new book, Dr. Smith argues that medical education mostly pays “lip service” when it comes to training physicians who are ready and comfortable serving patients who struggle with unaddressed psychosocial and psychological needs.    He calls for a complete overhaul of medical education. What would that take? Is an overhaul feasible, or are the market forces that now drive medicine as big business too overpowering to allow for transformative change?   

Soon after Lisa Iezzoni MD was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis during her first year at Harvard Medical School, from which she graduated in 1984, faculty and administrators discouraged her from practicing medicine.  And in her final year they made it impossible for her when the dean’s office refused to write a recommendation letter (now called a Medical Student Performance Evaluation).  This week marks the 35th anniversary of the American Disabilities Act which was signed into law on July 26th, 1990. Much has changed since but -- as Dr. Iezzoni, who went on to become an eminent scholar and national policy leader on disability, has documented -- not nearly enough.  She and others have documented wide disparities in the quality of care patients with disabilities still receive, and in 2021 she published the findings of a national study of physician attitudes towards disability that document’s persistent stigma and misinformation. Disabled patients were described as a “disruption to clinic flow” and a majority of physicians believed that patients with significant disability inherently have a worse quality of life.  Practices are also ill-equipped to care for them, Dr. Iezzoni, who chaired the U.S. Access Board’s advisory committee on accessibility standards for medical equipment observed that “healthcare has been among the most backward environments, in terms of making itself accessible. Movie theaters are accessible, sports stadiums are accessible, transit is accessible. But healthcare facilities—no.” In our conversation with her, we explore why.  How is it that physicians have such difficulty appreciating that disability is simply a part of the human experience? We explore the link between the culture within medical education and training, and the kind of people physicians become.  ------ References: Physicians' Perceptions of People with Disability and Their Health Care US Access Board

It is difficult to overstate the achievements of Richard Clarke Cabot (1868-1939) a relatively little-known, old-moneyed physician of the early 20th century who was far ahead of his time in how much he contributed, and how willing he was to question his own limitations. Cabot's achievements include: creation and self-funding of the first medical social work service and establishment of the fields of clinical pastoral care and medical ethics. His work offered seminal contributions to the fields of hematology, cardiology, infectious disease, and medical education – including the clinical pathologic conference, case-based learning and the differential diagnosis; the first large-scale randomized experiment in the history of criminology; the science of medical error; and introducing the concept of a group insurance plan. He authored countless books, articles and textbooks.  Most remarkable, considering Cabot's extraordinary intellect, was his openness to reflecting on his own deficits as a physician, including getting diagnoses wrong, and describing his own failures in seeing the humanity of his patients.  Joy, curiosity, and generosity were among his distinctive personal characteristics.  So, why is he not more widely remembered? Perhaps because of one of his greatest attributes: he pointed out things about his profession that the medical establishment didn’t want to hear.

In an April 23rd executive order (EO), the president of the United States alleges that the Liaison Committee for Medical Education (LCME) and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) are requiring medical schools and residency programs to pursue unlawful discrimination through DEI policies. The EO calls for the US Department of Education to “assess whether to suspend or terminate” them, and to “streamline the process” for recognizing new accreditors to replace them.  In addition, medical journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, are getting letters from a US Attorney, calling them “partisans in various scientific debates,” and requesting information.  As a follow up to our last episode on authoritarianism and its implications for the medical profession, we consider these new developments from two perspectives: On the one hand we look for evidence to support the government’s claims; and, on the other, we consider how they fit into the authoritarian’s playbook of capitalizing on polarization to breakdown civil society and consolidate power.  There are things physicians and other health professionals can and should be doing now – and we propose a few -- to protect our profession from an authoritarian incursion that threatens our commitment so scientific integrity, and to a medical education system that, however imperfect, is informed by expert knowledge and professional values.

The record of physicians standing up for their values as healers under authoritarian regimes is not good, whether it’s Nazi Germany, the former Soviet Union, or Iraq, with behaviors ranging from assisting in torture, to psychiatric hospitalization for political reasons. And sadly, it’s often without any coercion. More subtly, physicians may go along with authoritarian regimes' demands, thinking they can just "stay above the fray."  But is that possible? Already, other professional institutions, including academia and law, have struck deals in the hope they they can move on, rather than defend academic freedom or long-standing legal principles.   What’s in store for medicine? Some might say “not much” -- physicians must simply continue to take good care of their patients. But some are already acceding to orders to abandon care to certain populations, including trans people and refugees; or to compromise privacy. And professional organizations are saying little about looming cuts that would curtail access to care for millions of Americans. One scholar of authoritarianism, Timothy Snyder has written, “When political leaders set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become more important. Authoritarians need obedient servants.” In this episode, two physicians wrestle with what those commitments are, and how we hold on to them.

Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs) were originally designed for law enforcement to monitor patients and physicians for criminal behavior before it became available to health care professionals. Physicians and pharmacists often find PDMPs helpful because they can verify what a patient tells them and will often decide not to prescribe or dispense opioids if they discover their patient has been going to multiple providers and pharmacies. But is that health care or policing? Who benefits and who is harmed? Those are questions we consider with our guest, Elizabeth Chiarello, PhD, sociology professor and author of Policing Patients: Treatment and Surveillance on the Frontlines of the Opioid Crisis. The themes we discuss are not unique to PDMPs. This is at least our fifth episode exploring how the criminal justice mindset has crossed into medical practice with harmful effects. Prior ones include: ·       Opioids and the physician-patient relationship: What are we getting wrong? March 2022 ·       Urine Drug Screening: How it can traumatize patients and undermine the physician-patient relationship without helping anyone August 2022 ·       My patient’s in shackles: Can we take these off? April 2023 ·       Drug testing at time of birth: How physicians are co-opted into harming families while thinking they are doing the right thing. Nov 2023

There are a lot of videos on YouTube that feature typically young physicians explaining why they decided to leave the profession after years of dedication and hard work.  For some it appears that they were so successful at building a social media presence and related businesses, that they quit medicine. Others seem to just want to share their experience in the hope it might help others. They describe how a sense of exhaustion, dreading work each day and discovering that it wasn’t what they imagined when they dreamed of becoming a doctor drove them away.  What they have to say feels quite convincing, and thousands of comments affirm them.   At the same time, there is something missing. They rarely talk about their relationships with patients or how medicine, no matter how corrupted it is by profit seeking, really is a special and unique profession that is worth fighting for. We reflect on what to make of this blind spot, trying very hard not to sound preachy.  

In December 2024, the three organizations that oversee medical school (MD and DO) and residency education released a set of “Foundational Competencies for Undergraduate Medical Education,” that represent a consensus on the observable abilities medical students should exhibit as they begin practicing medicine under supervision. Not surprisingly they include taking a relevant patient history, performing a relevant physical exam, and creating and prioritizing a differential diagnosis.  But a new one – and it’s the first one under Patient Care -- entails integrating patient context and preferences into patient care. Stefan interviews co-host Saul Weiner who has documented a strong correlation between contextualizing care and patient health care outcomes in thousands of encounters. Saul reflects on how contextualizing care is a deeply human but teachable process that AI can’t replicate and that makes care measurably more effective for patients, and more meaningful for doctors. The Institute for Health Care Improvement’s new online course on contextualizing care is accessed at Contextualizing Care 101. For bulk orders email [email protected]