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Opioid Epidemic Has Changed How Doctors Prescribe

UW Medicine

ij.david_tauben_whole_interview.mp3
Hear Doug Nadvornick's complete interview with Dr. David Tauben.

Dr. David Tauben was in Spokane last week to talk about what he terms as ‘the opioid epidemic.” Tauben is the chief of pain medicine for the University of Washington School of Medicine. Opioids are those drugs prescribed by doctors to cover up pain. Millions have become addicted to them, hundreds of thousands of Americans have died from opioid overdoses.

Tauben says there are better ways to treat pain, but opioids have been the easy treatment for doctor and insurance companies. That, he says, is changing. Not only have opioids have caused so much pain for families, he says they’re also creating a major shift in the ways doctors treat patients in pain.

Tauben says medical students are learning more about pain and how to treat it than veteran physicians received.