doctorThe out-of-control abuse and addiction to opioid prescription painkillers plagues our nation. According to TakeAsPrescribed.org, the fastest growing drug problem facing Oklahoma is prescription drug abuse. From 2007 through 2012, four in every five deaths in the state involved one prescription drug, or more. In that same time period, there were close to 3,900 unintentional prescription drug-related poisioning deaths (overdose deaths) in Oklahoma, ranking it 5th highest in the nation.

The Hippocratic Oath

The escalating prescription drug abuse and overdose-caused death rate in Oklahoma begs the question—where are Oklahomans getting these drugs which require a prescription from a licensed prescriber?

It is widely accepted that Hippocrates, the “Father of Medicine”, wrote the Hippocratic Oath in the late 5th Century B.C. (Before Christ), recording it in the Greek language of that time period.

Physicians have been bound for all the centuries since by the Hippocratic Oath. It embodies general ethical principles which govern the relationship of the physician to his patients—and to his profession.

The oath is likely the most broadly known of the Greek medical texts, and it requires a physician newly accepted into practice to swear to uphold certain ethical standards of the profession.

The essence of the Hippocratic Oath is to, “First, do no harm.”

In its original form, it held the physician responsible to his peers, and loyal to his medical training and its teachers. Over the many centuries of its use, the oath has been adopted and rewritten by different cultures.

Unfortunately, it seems that most medical schools of today no longer require a graduating physician to take the Hippocratic Oath. Perhaps most unsettling, the altered versions of today’s Hippocratic Oath no longer contain the explicit phrase, “First, do no harm.”

Overprescribing

A recent online OklahomaWatch article highlights the issue of overprescribing in Oklahoma.

Dr. Ronald V. Meyers, Sr., practicing medicine at the Roland, Oklahoma Wellness Clinic had his license to prescribe narcotics revoked by the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (OBNDD).

Myers prescribed 4.6 million dosage units of addictive drugs in a period of 18 months during 2013 and 2014.

According to an OBNDD document, Myer’s record provided “clear and convincing evidence” of overprescribing activity.

Meyers’ prescribing license revocation will go into effect May 2nd, 2015. It remains in effect for one year. The bureau is also ordering Myers to pay an administrative fine of $25,000. Failure to pay the fine will prevent him from reapplying for a prescribing license.

According to the article, Myers is targeting the OBNDD action as discriminatory; and pointing fingers to the “irresponsible actions of other physicians” practicing at the Wellness Clinic where Meyers is on record as the director.

Meyers also cites Oklahoma as “one of the most racist states” where he has practiced medicine, telling OklahomaWatch that the current situation is a continuation of discriminatory practices against what he, as an African-American doctor, is doing for patients with chronic pain.

Myers attributes his high prescribing count to having taken-on patients already overprescribed by other Wellness Clinic doctors. This begs the question as to why then, as director of the clinic, no effective action was taken to curtail overprescribing by fellow physicians.

According to one witness who is a former patient at the Wellness clinic, she began going there because she was told by a family member that she could get the drugs she wanted there. She would spend $1,400 cash every month at the Wellness Clinic for multiple prescriptions of Oxycontin and Xanax. She would then sell what she didn’t use herself, tripling her money. According to the witness, she received no physical exam by a doctor at the clinic; and it was Myers who signed all her prescriptions starting the 23rd of July, 2013, through the 1st of January, 2014.

It is standard business practice in any profession to have knowledge of, understand and be responsible for any document to which you affix your signature—including your tax forms. With the privilege and power granted to a physician comes the burden of ultimate responsibility for the lives of those who entrust themselves to his or her care.

Minimally, a physician is ultimately responsible for each prescription signed—and what it represents.

The narcotics bureau hired Lawton, Oklahoma physician, Dr. Richard Brittingham to review the Wellness Clinic activity as an expert witness. According to Brittingham, although the Wellness Clinic doctors were using the term “pain clinic”, the term “pill mill” would be more appropriate.

And as Hippocrates so wisely wrote over two-thousand years ago, “If I faithfully observe this oath, may I thrive and prosper in my fortune and profession…or on breach thereof, may the reverse be my fate.”