Promises Treatment Centers Tackles Growing Problem of 'Junkie Doctors'

LOS ANGELES, May 25 /PRNewswire/ -- Could your doctor be a drug addict? The answer could surprise you. An article published last week in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) concluded that physicians are more likely to become junkies than the public at large. "Health care professionals and physicians in particular have rates of substance abuse that are equal to and often exceed those observed in the general public," according to the article ("Intellectualization of Drug Abuse") by Clinton B. McCracken, PhD., in the May 19th edition of the prestigious medical publication.

Those findings were confirmed by Michael A. Sucher, MD, a nationally recognized authority on physician addiction and head of the professional health program at Promises Treatment Centers in Los Angeles.  Famous for treating Hollywood celebrities, Promises is also one of the nation's leading institutions for treating substance abuse by doctors.

"There are many reasons why there's such a high incidence of addiction among physicians," said Dr. Sucher. "At the core of the problem is that the same personality traits that make a good doctor also make a good addict.  When you're dealing with life or death situations a certain compulsiveness to detail is required.  Channeled in another way, that compulsiveness can facilitate addiction," he says.

There are other factors as well that turn doctors into junkies, including easy access to drugs, high levels of income and their professional stature that allows them to deflect the legal consequences of drug addiction more easily than the public at large. "Doctors are surrounded by enablers -- professional colleagues, administrators and even patients, who make excuses for their bad behavior, which can be the first sign of a substance problem," he says.

All told, Dr. Sucher -- who also serves as Medical Director of the Physicians Health Program of the Arizona Medical Association and President of the California Physicians Health Program -- estimates he's treated more than 2,000 physicians for substance abuse.

At Promises, Dr. Sucher leads a team of professionals whose physician addiction program boasts a 90+ percent success rate.  The rigorous regimen for doctor patients includes twice weekly sessions with other recovering physician addicts, both a psychological and physical evaluation and if necessary, even a "medical polygraph test."  Because physicians perform in an arena with both ethical and legal issues, their transition from an addictions program must also take into account potential problems of state licensing and malpractice insurance.

While the underlying causes of an addiction are complex and individual to each case, Dr. Sucher sees a recurring factor among physicians, many at the top of their professions, who nevertheless succumb to chemical dependency. They tend to think of themselves beyond the reach of addiction or if they become addicted, then it's a temporary problem that they can fix themselves. The JAMA article described this as "the ability of highly educated professionals to intellectualize their drug use."

In one of Dr. Sucher's cases, a physician was the only doctor on duty one evening at the emergency room of the only hospital in a small town. The doctor suddenly disappeared and when he was urgently needed, his staff went looking for him.  After breaking down a bathroom door, they found him slumped over a toilet with a needle in his arm. When they revived him, his only excuse for his behavior was that he had mistakenly taken the wrong form of the narcotic. "He had no awareness that his problem was much larger than an accidental dosage," says Dr. Sucher.

The Promises physician health program teaches doctors to embrace their "humaneness." "Society tends to place doctors on a pedestal. Here they learn it's ok to come down from that pedestal, admit they're human like everyone else and that yes, they, too, can have a drug or alcohol addiction," he says.

SOURCE Promises Treatment Centers