How the courts are harming pain management

To the pain patients with undertreated pain, you have the courts to thank:

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has now given physicians another reason to pause before prescribing painkillers. The state’s highest court allowed a lower court to hear a lawsuit resulting from a car accident in which a 75-year-old man, who was on various medications for medical ailments, killed a 10-year-old boy. The man, who had cancer, has since died, but the boy’s family sued the man’s physician because he had prescribed the medications without adequate (according to the lawsuit) instructions about driving . . .

. . . Can we continue to treat patients for pain without worrying that they might get behind the wheel? Should we overreact and tell all of our patients on pain medications that they had better stick to sidewalks and mass transit?

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