The drug epidemic in America is at a shocking all time high. The rate of people dying from drug overdoses has been quickly increasing more and more over the last 10 years. Yet these drug overdoses are not always from scary street drugs like in the movies, many of the big killers come from behind the pharmacy counter. When in medical distress, a doctor is the first person many turn to. Medical emergencies, life-long illnesses, or developed diseases, and a doctor can either completely stop the problem in its tracks or curb the issue until its manageable. However more and more doctors are making mistakes while treating their patients. Not only are prescription drugs not always even necessary, but doctors are prescribing medications at alarmingly …show more content…
In a health letter written by Sidney Wolfe M.D. from Public Citizen, Wolfe says "although Medicare beneficiaries comprise only 14 percent of the community population, they account for more than 41 percent of prescription medicine expenses" (Wolfe). This means that this low population of people are being prescribed either too many drugs at one time, high dosages of these drugs, or high quantities of each prescription. In America, there is even a recommended limit from the federal government to try and combat these problems with addiction, but it is not a law, it is a recommendation. "American doctors give their patients narcotic painkillers, 99 percent of them hand out prescriptions that exceed the federally recommended three-day dosage" ("Almost"). Not only is it a problem that doctors go over the three day limit that is suggested by the American federal government, but it raises the question of how far these doctors go in their dosages to patients. In a survey done by the NSC, they found that one-fourth of doctors gave out narcotic prescriptions for month-long doses, although using narcotic painkillers for a month has been found to cause brain changes ("Almost"). When prescriptions are used at high dosages for too long, the patients run a seriously high risk of forming a dependence on these …show more content…
"Inappropriate prescribing is an academically gentle euphemism for prescriptions for which the risks outweigh the benefits," says Wolfe, "thus conferring a negative health impact on the patient" (Wolfe). However, many people experience misprescribing and do not even know it. The most common form of misprescription is when a medicine is prescribed when if the patient made lifestyle changes, such as diet, sleeping habits, and more, the problem could disappear without the use of drugs. When a group of doctors were asked to treat a patient in a scenario, a patient complaining of insomnia, 65 percent of doctors prescribed sleeping pills although if they would have accurately found out about the patient they would have found that this patient drank coffee in the evenings, was not exercising, and was actually getting enough sleep just falling asleep very early so they would awake at four in the morning (Wolfe). And this lack of proper questioning commonly matches patients with a drug that is not the best option for them. For example, in the NSC's survey, they found that although almost 85 percent of doctors ask about personal history of addiction, only one-third ask about family history of addiction ("Almost"). If doctors focused more on helping their patient than they did on which medicines they need to sell, addiction in the United