What a Pain

There seems to be something of an all-consuming concern on my floor (which I have just left for the next four months for my new clinical placement) but there still exists, in my absence I am sure, a somewhat obsessive concern with drug seeking. Granted, when I walk in the room, evaluate my patient, have a nice, friendly and coherent conversation with her -- VS normal, everything checks out -- ask her pain on a scale of 1-10 and have her reply "12", I have to think there's something a little fishy going on... especially when her PRN med is methadone.

It is a problem. But it is not as big a problem as some of the other nurses seem to imagine. For example, when my next patient has a hole in his body that is 4x4" and has reached the bone, and he reports to the docs, "I want you to change my demerol from every 6 to every 4 hours because my pain is a 7 all the time" I tend to roll with that. But this guy has had an incredibly hard time getting anyone to believe he is in any pain at all.

With that in mind, I've found some good advice in the event that you're ever in pain and in the hospital -- credit to Crass-Pollination, an ER Nurse who says:
"Attention: The pain scale stops at 10. If you say '12', we think you're FOS."