Monday, November 9, 2009
Diversion 2.0
A British official was removed for Estimating Drug Harms, a "controversial" (read: inconveniently accurate) study on the top 20 most harmful substances. I have a strong hunch that our most prescribed/profitable FDA-approved drugs would show up left-of-center on this graph.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I have an unsexy health fact for you. I conducted a somewhat formal study at my previous employer, to find whether or not there was a correlation between incidents where patients fall on our unit and other variables.
(This was after two falls where the patients suffered subsequent subdural hematomae and died. Falls aren't sexy, but if it's your Mom or Dad, believe me, you care.)
We checked for time of day, shift, whether or not there was a person present, admit diagnosis, any secondary diagnosis psych- or substance-withdrawal related and looked hard for patterns of recently administered drugs.
We expected certain sleeping meds and narcotics to be a factor, as well as alcohol withdrawal diagnosis (which came in cause #3).
Nope.
Know what the #1 drug positively correlated to patient falls was? Intraveneously-administered Lasix. A drug that makes you have to pee. NOW. This was the case in a riDICUlously high number of cases studied.
In my nursing career, I have yet to hear of a patient who suffered a SDH and died after smoking dope. I've seen death from alcohol and its withdrawal and I have seen some TRULY vile stuff with heroin and/or meth withdrawal.
No death by marijuana yet.
/m, rn
Post a Comment