Opioid crisis remains critical national problem.

Abstract

Lisa Hines Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) pharmacist Emily Skogrand remembers the event that awoke her compassion for patients with substance use disorders. Skogrand was reviewing the chart of a young woman who had been admitted multiple times for serious complications of substance use. The patient had been near death from endocarditis about a month before but recovered. Now, she was back in the intensive care unit. Skogrand initially looked down on the patient for repeating the behavior that had nearly killed her just weeks before. But after reading a brief chart note about a traumatic experience in the patient’s past, Skogrand started to see how that incident shaped the young woman’s life. “This young lady was my age, she had a seemingly similar upbringing to me . . . and then this 1 horrific thing occurred to her, and she has to live with that every day,” Skogrand explained. “And I just thought, what I would do if I were in a similar situation; could I have gone down the same path? And that humanized the disease to me.”