Resource Library

In 2017, sexual harassment claims dominated news coverage and social media forums. Claims of sexual misconduct and harassment have certainly clouded — if not ended — the careers of once powerful and publicly respected celebrities, and the #MeToo movement has encouraged and empowered many ordinary people to come forward with their stories of being harassed and treated inappropriately. The healthcare field is not immune to claims of sexual harassment.

With costs of medical school continuing to rise at unprecedented rates, and a widening income gap, the federal government offers numerous student loan repayment assistance options for loan forgiveness, repayment and deferment.

Physicians and hospitals are beginning to build more infrastructures focused on community health. As health care continues to adapt to an aging population and a consequential epidemiologic transition from acute illness to chronic disease, physician leadership in community health becomes an increasingly important factor in providing medical care.

The most conservative addiction and overdose prevention policies and procedures can’t protect a primary care clinician from inheriting a patient who is taking high doses of opioids for chronic pain. In many cases, because of the patient’s limited resources or the limited number of specialists in the community, primary care clinicians are expected to satisfy the patient’s needs for specialty care, including pain management, mental health, and physical therapy. Although there is no perfect solution for clinicians faced with these challenging patients, the following recommendations can decrease the risk of overdose and increase the chance that patients can be transitioned to safer pain management:^*

According to the defense expert in the following case, patients who can’t or won’t engage in alternative treatments for their pain should not be prescribed pain medications as a matter of course. Consider how the overdose in the following case could have been prevented if the internist had followed the CDC opioid prescribing guidelines.