Hooked On Narcotics

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1. I was in Family Practice in rural Iowa for a decade. I always prided myself on recognizing and denying scores to drug-seekers. But I was totally fooled by a pro. An articulate, obviously well educated young man presented with a legitimate case bronchitis. He spun the story that he had married a girl from a nearby village, and would be based in the area for his freelance job, and wanted to establish relations as a new patient of the Clinic. He claimed he had recently received a medical discharge from the Navy where he served as an F18 Weapons Systems Officer. He had been worked up for cluster headaches, including a cerebral arteriogram. He gladly signed release of medical information forms so we could build his medical file for future reference. He then mentioned oh-by-the-way, he had an occasional recurrence of the cluster headaches once or twice a year and liked to keep a few Percocet on hand for those events. Why sure, I thought, glad to help this nice young man. I only found out the truth when a pharmacist from a town some distance away called me and let me know this man had filled more than one prescription from different practices. And then of course the “local” addresses and phone numbers he gave proved fraudulent. Got me.

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