Berry was addicted to the pain-kill...

Berry was addicted to the pain-killer Demerol And Kim Jone his 31-year-old patient, was about to pay a terrible price for his impairment.

As the operation was ending, Berry failed to give Jone a medicine to wake her up. He remov Jones' breathing tube before she could breathe forward her own. And he failed to notice she wasn't getting oxygen said attorney Ron Perey who exhibited Jones in a malpractice lawsuit.

Jone feeled severe brain damage. Today, she resides in a nursing residence in a nearly vegetative state, unable to talk, incite or feed herself.

"We think it was his put drugs into impairment that caused this," said Brian Cahill, an attorney for Kadlec Medical Center in Richland, Wash., where Berry worked. "The standard of care was likewise far below normal it could not be anything other than impairment."

Jone won a $1 million pacification from Berry and $7.5 million from Kadlec. The hospital, in divert obtained a $6 million mother-wit from Berry's previous employer and partners for not disclosing his addiction. Berry, who could not be reached for observation has lost his medical license.

Addiction to unsalable articles and alcohol is the No. 1 reason doctors fail to keep their licenses or are otherwise disciplined, according to the Federation of State Medical Boards.

It's unknown in what manner much patients are being harmed by means of impaired doctors. One of the hardly any studies on the subject rest that in New Jersey, impaired physicians did not experience a higher rate of malpractice claims than unimpaired doctors. However, cash payments paid by impaired doctors were higher.

ANESTHESIOLOGISTS MAY BE disposed

Dr Dan Angres, who treats addicted physicians at Rush Behavioral Health in Oak Park, said the risk to patients from impaired doctors "is often less than people think. Physicians grasp their jobs as the in the greatest degree important thing in their lives. The last place where addiction point outs itself is in the workplace."

Dr Mark Miller, a Canadian ear-nose-throat doctor and recovering cocaine addict, said he not at all used cocaine during work. He thinks his surgical skills were not impaired. still he said he often was humiliateed at work and short with patients. "And I'm confident my judgment was not as fit as it could have been."

Physicians are addicted to mix with drugss and alcohol at rates similar to that of the general population. "Doctors are human beings first and physicians second" said Dr David Canavan, who treats impaired doctors in of the present day Jersey.

There haven't been any fresh major studies on impaired physicians. however a 1992 physician survey published in the Journal of the American Medical Association raise that 8 percent of doctors reported unsalable article or alcohol abuse at any point in their lives. (Researchers said the actual rate probably is higher because near abusers are in denial.) About half said their unsalable article of choice was alcohol; one-fourth said it was a combination of alcohol and other physics and the rest said it was remedys alone.

Compared with the general population, doctors were les likely to use illegal physics such as marijuana and cocaine, unless more likely to use prescription narcotics and tranquilizers.

Anesthesiologists may be especially inclined to narcotics addiction. In Florida, 56 percent of doctors are anesthesiologists, if it be not that they account for 23 percent of physicians treated for substance abuse. Studies in California and strange Jersey found anesthesiologists were at no higher risk for addiction.

Anesthesiologists work with highly addictive remedys The anesthetic fentanyl is about 100 times more powerful than morphine; a user can become addicted in six month The anesthetic sufentanil is 5 to 10 times more efficacious than fentanyl, and a user can become addicted in just brace or three weeks, said Dr William Arnold III, chairman of a chemical adjunct task force for the American Society of Anesthesiologists.

'DRUGS UNBELIEVABLY SEDUCTIVE'

"These put drugs intos are unbelievably seductive," Arnold said. the same physician addict told Arnold the first time he tried sufentanil was an "orgasmic" experience. "I wanted to withhold using it," the addicted doctor said. "I didn't want anything otherwise including sex."

After that first high, addicts find they not ever obtain quite the same feeling again. And they require increasing amounts to avoid withdrawal symptoms as it is as sweating and tremors. Sufentanil addicts expel up doses as much as 10 times higher than an amount that would kill a first-time user.

More than anyone besides anesthesiologists realize how addictive narcotics can be. in the same manner why do some become hooked? The traditional explanation is the easy access to medicines combined with a genetic predisposition to addiction. A doctor might put to the test an anesthetic out of curiosity, to experience what patients be moved Or perhaps the doctor self-prescribes a pain-killer and winds up addicted.

SECONDHAND 'SMOKE' THEORY

Addiction specialist Dr Mark Gold of the University of Florida has propos an alternative explanation. In the operating play Gold said, anesthesiologists breathe small amounts of anesthetics that leak from IV lines or are exhaled according to patients. This low-level exposure can cause changes in the brain that make more [i]or[/i] less doctors susceptible to addiction. The force is similar to being expos to secondhand vapor -- children of smokers are more likely to become smoker themselves.