Connie has cared for people with chronic pain her whole career, but has had a special interest in this topic since 2003, when she recognized the changes in pain management policies were causing harm. At that time, physicians were being urged to treat pain more aggressively, to continue to escalate opioid therapy until patients reported relief. That is not a successful strategy, as we have subsequently learned.
She continues to think she knows better than the "experts" ( or really, than the regulators who do not care for these patients and yet still consider themselves experts), and has used her own best clinical judgment, combined with voracious reading, attendance at a variety of conferences, additional training in modalities such as mind-body medicine, acupuncture, and Functional Medicine to care for complex patients who struggle with serious chronic pain.
As part of that commitment, and in keeping with her Hippocratic Oath, she has accepted "opioid refugees" since the guideline changes in 2014, helping many of them to wean their opioid doses and to improve their quality of life despite their medical challenges, though some are more challenging than others, but has learned that no good deed goes unpunished.
Our state medical regulators think that intimidating physicians into lowering prescriptions magically cures people of pain and addiction, and have not yet noticed that these draconian policies have actually increased mental health crises and overdose deaths, Unfortunately, Connie could not defend her good name without spending an estimated $100,000 on her legal defense, and instead settled with the Medical Board in order to keep practicing and avoid leaving patients without care.
See a recent news story from Nevada about how the tide is turning on this topic.
More Below. . .
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