The Risks Of Drug Abuse

July 17, 2012 0 Comments

Medical professionals should assist people. They are usually not the individuals who require support. Both doctors and nurse practitioners are vulnerable to drug addiction and they may even become more at risk compared to the general public.

Medical experts seem to be particularly at risk of prescription drug addiction. This is because they get access to prescription products that the general public does not have access to.

Furthermore, physicians know about the drug’s consequences and might feel like they aren’t going to become addicted because they fully understand the drug.

Prescription drugs and sleeping pills appear to be the most common kind of substance abused by medical experts. Sometimes the addictions begin with a legitimate prescription after an injury. The comforting effect becomes obsessive to someone in a high-stress atmosphere such as the profession of medicine. Subsequently, physical addiction starts.

Nurse practitioners learn how to beat the system by planning that they will give a patient one pill, instead of two. Then they keep the extra pill. Sometimes, they keep the dose while the patient is sleeping. They have access to substance cupboards. Other steal prescription pads and create their own prescriptions. You can even find physicians that are happy to write unneeded prescriptions.

Nurses can lose their jobs if they are caught abusing drugs. Often, the physicians are put on probation by medical boards for violations including illegal prescriptions or abusing medicines while at work.

The conditions of their probation may be substance treatment, along with random drug testing and monitoring for a specified time period – frequently not less than five years.

Medical doctors and nurses often get more seriously abused than their patients because they take higher quality medications than people on the streets. Some anesthetics, like the painkiller fentanyl, are stronger than morphine or heroin.

Going back to work could be especially hard. Often doctors change their specialties after drug addiction treatment to remove the source of temptation.

Some states in America allow the physicians to continuing working while they are in rehab. Other states allow the physicians to keep their certificates as long as they refrain from using medicines or alcohol. This policy is not accepted in lots of locations due to the risk to the general public.

The majority of state boards are requiring that doctors seek fentanyl addiction treatment rather than using criminal prosecution as a deterrent. They feel this might create instances under which doctors hide their obsessions rather than searching for therapy.

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