Substance misuse by doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers

The Effects of Employer-Provided Massage Therapy on Job Satisfaction, Workplace Stress, and Pain and Discomfort

“…2 Moreover, healthcare workers with occupational or nonoccupational illness or injury may face unique challenges because of societal misperceptions that qualified healthcare providers must themselves be free from any physical or mental impairment. 4 The quality of health and healthcare services begins with the frontline healthcare workers-for example, the to represent an unsolved problem. It is well established in the existing literature that musculoskeletal problems have multifactorial etiology.…”

Pending appendicectomy: a personal experience and review of a doctor’s own illness

“…Work is often emotionally as well as physically demanding, with clinicians routinely having to deal with suffering and death as well as the responsibility of making potentially life changing decisions under pressure. In addition, the ability of doctors to easily access and administer prescription medications likely contributes to the high levels of drug and alcohol abuse among healthcare professionals 11 13 14…”

Dr Junkie. The Doctor Addict in Bulgakov’s Morphine: What are the Lessons for Contemporary Medical Practice?

“…The 'self-treatment' practised by physicians is unique to them as a population given their expertise and training, their key role in drug administration, and their access to controlled drugs. Despite advice to the contrary, many physicians continue to selfprescribe (British Medical Association-BMA, 2012;Hem et al 2005;Bennett and O'Donovan 2001;Montgomery et al 2011) presenting clear risks to the individual and to patients in their care (Brooks et al 2011a). The tradition of 'self-experimentation' where clinicians used their bodies as 'laboratories' has been well-documented, for example Sigmund Freud's use of cocaine which he described as a 'magical drug' and which was later used as a local anaesthetic, Thomas Beddoes, the physician who discovered the medicinal utility of nitrous oxide, and the surgeon William Stuart Halstead who experimented with cocaine and morphine (Imber 2011;Jay 2010).…”