Podcast: How should doctors speak and listen to patients when discussing opioid reductions?

In a new “On Becoming a Healer” podcast episode, Dr. Stefan Kertesz speaks with Dr. Saul Weiner about the risk of suicide with opioid reduction, and how that should affect the patient-doctor relationship. The episode summarizes a controversial new study, and then focuses on how the power dynamic between doctors and patients affects the way they speak with each other. On Becoming a Healer streams on podcast platforms like Apple & Spotify and also at this webpage.

Suicide and Opioids: No Easy Answers, No Sweeping Conclusions

Our study’s principal investigator Dr. Stefan Kertesz recently offered a popular blog post for Sensible Medicine on a new scientific paper arguing that prescription opioid reductions were likely to reduce suicides at the regional level. The new paper by authors at Columbia University suggested that analyzing prescriptions and suicides at the regional level will help clinicians better understand the risk of suicide for any particular individual. Dr. Kertesz criticizes the piece in an article titled “Suicide and Opioids: No Easy Answers, No Sweeping Conclusions”. Read it, or listen, here.