I believe in the statement that it is not our place to be judging our patients. Some may respond by saying they are not judging, but using "clinical judgement". In my opinion, that is complete horse manure. Flame away.
Fair enough, and I agree completely with you. Of course, I hope that you aren't some sort of hypocrite, and whenever someone tells you that they are short of breath you use every single medicine that you have available for respiratory issues to treat them. All of them. For every respiratory issue. After all, trying to determine what the cause of their complaint was and if they even have a valid complaint isn't using clincal judgement, it's judging someone. And that's wrong.
Do you see how silly that is?
It's shocking how often this arguement comes up here, despite how few times I've had to argue about it in real life. So, either I work with a truly elite group of paramedics (yeah...not completely true), nobody gives narcotics where I work (given how often the drug log get's updated that isn't the case) or most people have figured out something that is lacking here.
Saying that everyone who complains of pain will get treated for said pain indiscriminantly is no different than indiscriminently treating a complaint of SOB as above, or giving every single person complaining of chest pain nitro...:rofl:... To decide if someone needs a narcotic is no different than deciding if someone needs albuterol or nitro or versed or magnesium or amiodarone or dopamine or epinephrine; it is our job to determine what treatement a patient needs based on our assessment and, yes, judgement of what is happening. That does not mean judgement on a personal/socioeconomic level, but just focused on what the medical issue is. Even a spineless protocol monkey can do that; they still have to decide which protocol they'll be blindly following.
If you aren't capable of doing that, then you should not be in a position where you have to make decisions about someone's care. Period. That's really what is always so disturbing about this thread when it repeats itself; people are argueing that you should mindlessly treat people without thinking...why does that sound like a bad idea?
If someone is blatantly drug seeking then no, they don't get narcotics. If someone is in pain then they get treated until they aren't in pain anymore. If you aren't sure because you actually assessed the patient and still can't tell if there really is a cause for their complaints...then they get narcotics, or whatever you may carry for pain relief. See how simple that is?
Of course, at some point you'll be wrong if you do it like that, both in giving meds and withholding them. Hopefully not very often, but it will happen. But then...you'll also be wrong some of the times you give other medications, or choose not to give them.
