Future of Healthcare Conference talks center on gun violence, opioid abuse
"The first and only time I when is Vegas was not to gamble or go to a conference," Smith told the audience, gathered for the second annual Future of Healthcare Conference. "It was, for want of a better term, to sit with my 24-year-old son Andrew who two weeks earlier had overdosed for the first time. We were waiting for an opening in a long term treatment facility in
" 'We have to go the hospital to identify Andrew's body,' she told me.
"Andrew had overdosed again in a bathroom in a strip mall near his apartment. Going to that hospital was, without a doubt, the most horrific event in my life."
Smith's description of his son's death from an overdose of heroin put a human face on one of the two major topics that received most of the attention during the conference, organized by the
The other topic that drew a lot of attention was gun violence.
He said that "every single vehicular death is studied in minute detail" by the
The
With 38,500 firearm deaths last year, guns have become more deadly than sepsis, the presence in tissues of harmful bacteria and their toxins, typically through infection of a wound, said Brian Yorgitis, a UF Health Jacksonville trauma surgeon.
Yorgitis, who spent time as a police officer in
One in three guns are loaded and unlocked, he said. And in 2017, 525 firearms were stolen from unlocked cars in
Opioids are also a killer, said
When the state cracked down on pill mills in 2010 and 2011, the people who had been getting their drugs through the pill mills "went to the streets," Wells said.
There they found heroin and synthetic opioids like fentanyl. The
"In most cases these are repeat overdoses," Wells said, adding the
In the past overdoses have been nightmares for emergency physicians, said
But St. Vincent's
While the program has not been an unqualified success, it has been effective enough that it is being expanded to other hospitals.
Meanwhile, doctors have begun to realize that they have contributed to the opioid problem by overprescribing the medications, said
By the late 2000s, doctors were beginning to overuse opioids, Formoso said. The average daily dose rose from 96 milligrams in 1997 to 700 milligrams in 2007. People undergoing minor surgical procedures were sent home with prescriptions for lots of pills.
By 2008, opioids had replaced marijuana as the gateway drug for young people, Formoso said. About 76 percent of nonmedical opioid users used pills prescribed for someone else.
"He was also an addict and a wanna-be gangsta,"
"One of the cardinal symptoms of opiate addiction is shame ... It is a disease of the shadows."
At the end of last year's "Future of Healthcare Conference," a consensus was formed that
Some participants favored pursuing research data on gun violence, which might involve looking at whether the Dickey Amendment could be repealed, Joshi said. Others favored efforts to educate the public about the problems created by opioids. Some even suggested making
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