Addiction Crisis Among Medical Professionals Leads to Licensing Discipline

Stress, anguish, pain, dread, and being overwhelmed may describe how people sometimes feel when working in the medical profession. Of course, those feelings are not limited to the medical profession and are part of life from time to time. However, medical professionals must endure experiences that are unique to their, and few people know what it is like to bear the awesome responsibility for saving another person’s life or nursing them back to health. Medical professionals, and physicians, in particular, will endure adverse patient outcomes during the span of one’s career. When compounding adverse results with the strain of running a medical practice, worrying about billing, insurance issues, and a host of other issue attendant with the practice of medicine along with all of life’s unexpected twists and turns, medical professionals can turn to unproductive methods of handling the resulting stress, anxiety, and depression.

Medical professionals, just like the rest of us, experience fatigue and exhaustion, but the demands of their jobs are unrelenting. Physicians and nurses can turn to substances stronger than caffeine to help keep them awake and alert. Patient care cannot yield to the physician’s sleep schedule or whether the doctor herself is a little under the weather. A doctor’s or nurse’s duty of care owed to his or her patients cannot acquiesce to the way a caregiver feels on a given day.

If you are a medical professional suffering from the effects of drug or alcohol misuse, you could face professional discipline, which can jeopardize your career, your family life, and your future. The stress and anxiety could turn you deeper into dependence on addictive substances. You need an advocate, someone who is going help you get through this difficult time. Kansas and Missouri professional licensing attorney Danielle Sanger can you help keep your license and protect you and your family if you are facing professional discipline due to an addiction to drugs or alcohol. When you have Attorney Sanger by your side, you know you have an attorney who has devoted her practice to defending the rights of professional licensees, including physicians, nurses, and other medical professionals who mightily struggle with addictions to drugs and alcohol.

Why Do Medical Professionals Become Addicted?

Paradoxically, medical professionals become addicted to prescription drugs and alcohol with great regularity despite knowing that substance misuse is damaging to their health. Notwithstanding the health risks, medical personal turn to prescription drugs because of the ease of access to medication, especially in hospitals. Fortunately, medical professionals have the education and training to recognize when they need help. Addicted health care providers are often amenable to treatment once they acknowledge that they have a problem. Hopefully, with the right guidance, treatment, and commitment to sobriety, the health care professional can free herself or himself from the potent grasp of addiction.

Seeking Treatment before Facing Disciplinary Hearings Can Minimize Adverse Outcomes

Obtaining treatment for addiction and committing to sobriety before facing professional discipline could help ease the severity of professional punishment. Taking responsibility and decisive action demonstrates to Boards of Medicine and Registration that the medical professional comprehends the seriousness of the problem and evinces the appropriate amount of concern for healing themselves while showing that the medical professional can safely resume treating patients. Every case is different, naturally, however, taking the first steps to sobriety necessarily assists the medical professional personally and professionally.

Urgent help for you when you need it

Kansas Professional Licensing Attorney Danielle Sanger is available to help you get your career back on track. Your professional is too valuable to allow the clutch of substance abuse to ruin your career and your personal life. Call Attorney Sanger today at 785-979-4353 to learn more about your legal options if you are under investigation for or are facing discipline for substance abuse as a medical professional.

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