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Showing posts from August 7, 2016

Personal pain

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I do not consider myself to be an expert in pain management, but I do manage the same on a regular basis. Not only have I been managing pain, I have been helping others to manage the pain. By teaching, helping in planning treatment for the patients admitted to our wards. I have used the WHO ladder, pain ruler etc. to teach and build capacity of JMOs to learn how to manage pain. But all this have been a based on a professional assessment and fairly detached and logical management of pain. We have had multiple discussions on rounds on how best to manage pain, why the PRN (as and when required - Pro Re Nata) never works. And PRN can be read as “personal responsibility mitigated” by writing an order and passing it on to the nurses, who generally never give the drugs because the patient neither complaints nor relatives ask for it. Because in our culture we are expected to tolerate pain. “Ethana dard to hoga, sahana padega….!” The principle with which we doctors practice. But