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doi: 10.1111/j.1748-720x.1994.tb01296.xpmid: 7749474
<jats:p>“It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” Charles Dickens easily could have been describing <jats:italic>our</jats:italic> time and the dilemma in which victims of nonmalignant chronic pain find themselves.</jats:p><jats:p>I am a forty-six-year-old registered nurse who specializes in oncology care and education. I am also a patient who suffers from chronic nonmalignant pain, and this malady has been the most frightening, the most humiliating, and the most difficult ordeal of my life.</jats:p><jats:p>The morning of February 1983 severed my life into “before” and “after,” as clearly as if it has been cut by a sharp knife. The “before” included my career as an oncology nurse, a college nursing professor, and a writer; but that was abruptly ended by the catastrophic rupture of a deep cerebral aneurysm. Surgery saved my life, but something unforeseen occurred during the procedure; and so, in the “after,” I have had to live with a serious seizure disorder and memory loss.</jats:p>
doi: 10.1111/j.1748-720x.1994.tb01301.xpmid: 7749479
<jats:p>In the United States, screening the urine of employees or job applicants for the presence of drugs has become commonplace. A survey of 794 large- and mediumsized companies, conducted by the American Management Association in January 1994, found that 87 percent of them now test job applicants for drug use. In <jats:bold>1987,</jats:bold> a similar survey found that 22 percent screened job applicants. Federally mandated drug testing programs with random testing requirements affect millions of workers in the transportation industry, the nuclear power industry, and the United States civil and military services.</jats:p><jats:p>As some of these programs pass their fifth anniversary since being instituted, it is important to assess the forces that led to their creation. Whether or not these programs are considered successful depends on what one expects to achieve by such widespread testing.</jats:p>
doi: 10.1111/j.1748-720x.1994.tb01304.xpmid: 7749482
<jats:p>Nurses in all practice roles and settings need to understand the therapeutic use and potential for abuse of prescription drugs. Nursing roles, which include the administration and prescription of medication, health teaching and the implications of application, and the detection of <jats:bold>drug</jats:bold>-related problems, require that such education be timely and comprehensive. This paper discusses the state of knowledge dissemination about prescription drugs within the general context of nursing education. It highlights educational needs and explores the attitudinal factors and knowledge deficits that influence the nursing practices of prescribing, pain management, nursing assessment, and care of persons with drug problems.</jats:p><jats:p>Standard educational requirements in all nursing curricula undergird teaching about licit and illicit drugs and medication, as well as their therapeutic use, misuse, and abuse. It has been recognized widely since the early <jats:bold>1980s,</jats:bold> however, that clinical experiences and didactic content on licit and illicit drugs presented in nursing programs is inadequate.</jats:p>
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