PHARMACIST STEVE

How many pts are going to go “gently into the night” ?  Commit suicide and the family has a very quiet funeral and/or cremates the body and everyone consoles each other that their family/friend is no longer in pain, no longer suffering. It is as if the person just “disappeared”  from the face of the earth.

Or, all those years of under/untreated pain and their adverse impact on the pt’s comorbidity issues, finally took their toll. A death that is probably labeled as “natural causes”. Most of their friends knows that there was nothing related to NATURAL CAUSES about their death.

Those chronic pain pts who are not able to be their own strong advocate, they need someone within the family circle to advocate for them. For whatever reason that someone is a “passive pt” they will typically end up with poor medical outcomes and often compromised QOL Someone that has the cojones and Chutzpah and has a medical power of attorney to act on behalf of the person.

Most communications with the practitioner should be done via pt portals/EMR (electronic medical records).  One to one verbal conversations can later be “not remember” or “not exactly what was stated”.  Communicating via EMR and printing out what was submitted to the practitioner and what they response – or lack of response – is… can be used in whatever is needed to document what was said or promised.

A good example, a pt’s pain meds have been reduced, pt who has had “normal-tensive blood pressure “, but the pt’s BP dramatically goes up, simple ask the practitioner what is going to be done about the pt’s hypertension?  After the pt is put on 4-5 different categories of pharma’s anti-hypertensives and the pt’s hypertension doesn’t change.  Ask the question, could there be a connection between little/no pain management and hypertension?  If they say NO.. ask if the pt could be put back on their previous pain meds to see if there was a connection? If they say NO… forget that old “do no harm quote”…  they are suppose to be “healers”. Every NO you get from the practitioner, is just a deeper hole they are digging themselves into.  Send them a article about that hypertension is the “silent killer”..  Is the pt having a stroke, heart attack, kidney damage or eye damage the practitioner’s “health outcome”

By the time the practitioner has figured out the hole they have dug themselves into, it will be too late. If you have printed out and saved all the communication documentation. If the practitioner tries to delete chose pieces of communications… the hole just got deeper.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.