Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rochester!ray
From: ray@rochester.ARPA (Ray Frank)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Aspirin vs. Codine
Message-ID: <21708@rochester.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 17-Oct-86 09:16:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: rocheste.21708
Posted: Fri Oct 17 09:16:38 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 17-Oct-86 22:20:54 EDT
References: <1823@bu-cs.bu-cs.BU.EDU> <529@cci632.UUCP>
Organization: U of Rochester, CS Dept., Rochester, NY
Lines: 36
Summary: pain relief

> In article <1823@bu-cs.bu-cs.BU.EDU> bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) writes:
> >A few years ago I had surgery. I was in a fair amount of pain afterwards
> >(I was basically bed-ridden for several days.) The doctor had given me
> >codeine pills which kind of wiped me out but did little to reduce the
> >pain (I sort of laid there and complained more slowly.)
> >

  Often I've heard first hand experience of people experiencing post operative
pain with little or no relief from their prescribed pain medication.  
This is frightening to know that you can be in a great deal of pain, letting
the nurses and doctors in on this and yet you still get no relief.  In one
instance, a person who was in a great deal of pain received a pain pill every
four hours.  But within an hour or so after the pill, the pain was back to
its' full intensity with no relief in sight for the next 3 hours no matter 
how much complaining was voiced.  
  My question is this, does a person confined to a hospital bed in a modern
hospital have any rights?  Do patients have to endure pain while their crys
go unheard.  Don't doctors realize that everyone is not the same and that
one pill every four hours is fine for one but inadequate for another?  I 
realize that nurses cannot increase medication without a doctors orders, but
they certainly must have the training necessary to assess the situation
on a patient by patient basis and relay this information to the doctor.  
  A good rule of thumb is to have someone on your side such as a spouse or
relative who can scream and yell at the nurses and doctors until you get 
some relief.  This may sound like interference in the duties of the medical
profession, and you are right, it is, and in certain instances is exactly
what must be done to get proper and adequate relief from suffering.  Too
often, hospital care is not unlike an assembly line, and individual 
personalized care is impossible with so many patients and not enough staff.    
Anyone who has ever been in the hospital knows that the likelyhood of seeing
your doctor more than once a day is rare but he or she is never more than
a phone call away to prescribe more medication to reduce suffering.  I don't
believe it is necessary or correct to have to wait until the next day to
have your doctor prescribe more relief.
 
ray