Doctors and Nurses underestimate pain

Posted by ghgeorge
September 21, 2009

In a "gee really?" statement today, the Journal of Clinical Nursing shows that doctors and nurses have no idea how to deal with chronic pain and dramatically underestimate the amount of pain a patient is in. From those that have to deal with medical professionals in a chronic pain situation, many run into giant problems where doctors either don’t believe the pain or are unwilling to treat the problem. The writer of this story was told by a doctor working in a local hospital that "We don’t treat pain, go home". That is easy to say while the pain feels like your arm is bring torn off while being lit on fire. Many times I wished that I could plug the nurses and doctors into my pain for 15 seconds. Then after they picked themselves off the floor they could then treat me for the pain I as in. The bottom line is that medical personnel do a horrible job of dealing with pain and in treating pain. Instead of asking patients what they are feeling or dealing with, the doctors arbitrarily make changes to pain medication that the patient then has to deal with later on. A local doctor in a hospital arbitrarily changed the amount of pain medication a chronic pain patient was getting from every two hours to every four hours. The patient required pain medication about every three hours and when they ran into the four hour issue had to wait for 90 minutes for the doctor to come back and make changes to the pain medication. This type of patient abuse has to stop and this research paper is a good place to start. Now that the medical industry has admitted they have a problem, lets see what they do to fix the situation. (Source: PhysOrg.com).

This story was written a little tongue and cheek, but considering the material and how the disabled community is treated by doctors and hospitals that it worked. Finally, after years of being ignored or telling us the pain was all in our heads, or that we are all drug seekers, a study finally comes out laying out at least part of the truth. SCRN hopes that this reminds doctors and nurses that we are humans that are usually in pain because of our injuries. Because of the problems described in this report, it is obvious that new federal laws need to be implemented and enforced. Few things are worse than dealing with pain at 9.5+ and the medical staff that you are depending on are indifferent to the fact that you are being torn apart internally. At the very least hospital should look at the pain medications you are on now and any additional ones you needed previously so they can get your pain level down. In the mean time I would strongly recommend that everyone write up a document that has the following information in it:

This paperwork, which will probably be around 3-5 pages should be given to any doctor at a hospital that you are dealing with. It will help them get up to speed and keep you from having to fill out the same paperwork over and over again. This will also let the nurses and doctors know that you are very serious about your health and that you will expect the same from them. This would guarantee you of better service, but we at SCRN have found it to be the most helpful document that we bring when we have to go to the hospital.

General, Medical

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