Each year one to two percent of people working in the healthcare field develop some form of addiction. According to Dr. Ethan Bryson from Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine, substance abuse and impairment of healthcare workers was a problem once largely ignored. Today, he says, people are more willing than ever to speak up and say that impaired professionals are putting everyone around them at risk, most of all their patients.
Because health professionals have access to potent drugs, these usually wind up being their undoing. While the person may start out using more common narcotics such as Percocet and Oxycodone, they easily migrate to more dangerous ones like Fentanyl and Propofal. The drugs are not only powerful, they’re also highly addictive. According to Bryson, doctors who abuse them are “dead or in treatment in a matter of months.”
While the medical field is more ready than before to admit there is a problem, there is still much to be done in terms of preparation to avoid the problem or how to handle it appropriately when it arises. More could also be done in teaching professionals how to recognize the symptoms of drug abuse: disheveled appearance, weight loss, mood swings, missed deadlines and a growing number of performance errors are all symptoms of a deeper problem.
