The Boston Globe has a front page story of an anesthesiology attending in Boston, recently found dead in a hospital closet:
There was a half-filled vial of propofol, a sedative used to put patients to sleep during surgery, and a syringe filled with midazolam, a powerful drug similar to Valium. There were empty vials of morphine, hydromorphone, and Demerol - addictive opiates capable of providing tremendous highs. And then there was one nearly empty vial of vecuronium - an intravenous muscle relaxant that, when taken at such a high dose, would shut down the body’s respiratory system in roughly three minutes, leading to certain death.
A tragic fall from grace of a promising young doctor. Apparently 2 percent of anesthesiology residents suffer from substance abuse. Some hospitals, like Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital, perform random drug testing of their anesthesiologists. Should a program like this be expanded to hospitals nationwide?
Update:
Notes of an Anesthesioboist comments.
topics: anesthesiologist, addicted
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Don’t forget alcoholism. And nurses are just as guilty too of some form of drug abuse.
That compendium of pharmaceuticals doesn’t sound like substance abuse gone wrong to me; sounds more like that lad committed suicide.