Opioid safety

Regarding “Doctors forced to rethink pain treatment” (Page A15, Sunday), doctors need to do more than rethink what they are doing. They need to start following well-vetted guidelines for prescribing opioids that have been available for almost 21 months.

On March 15, 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published “CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain.” There is no excuse I can see for doctors not following these guidelines, yet many obviously are not. Why not?

There are probably three factors at work. First, there is little accountability for patient harm caused by erroneous prescribing of opioids.

Second, proper pain management of patients requires much individual attention from the physician who already is overloaded with patients.

Third, the way physicians acquire new knowledge — say, to overcome the mistaken notion that opioids are not addictive — fails to ensure that physicians are current in their knowledge.

This last problem falls squarely in the lap of the Texas Medical Board. It requires only 48 hours of non-specific continuing medical education each biennium and verifies completion of that learning in only 1 percent of doctors each year.

Would you fly on Opioid Express Airlines if the pilot had a parachute so he did not go down with the plane, and he was too busy to spend time on essential details, and there was only a 1 percent chance he had his flying skills evaluated in the past year? John T. James, Houston, Founder, Patient Safety America