Health Care Blog March 17, 2025
When most Americans undergo surgery, they expect to recover quickly and return to their normal lives. Few realize that something as routine as a shoulder surgery, a hernia repair, or a mastectomy can mark the beginning of a life-altering opioid addiction. This often-overlooked connection between routine medical care and opioid dependence demands urgent attention.
How Physicians and Hospitals Sustain the Opioid Epidemic
For decades, the pharmaceutical industry has shaped medical education, ingraining the belief that opioids are the best first-line treatment for acute pain. As a result, American physicians prescribe opioids at dramatically higher rates than their counterparts in other countries. A recent study in Annals of Surgery found that after three common surgeries, 91% of U.S. patients were prescribed...