Jose Contreras From Hackensack University Medical Center: Opioid Addiction Casting Shadow Over Pain Medicine

With a continually growing opioid addiction new guidelines have been adopted looking to help fight this problem across the population. Some concerns have been raised about whether this will cause doctors to shy away from prescribing the medications for patients who can benefit most from them.

Jose A. Contreras, MD, the Chairman of the department of pain and palliative care at Hackensack University Medical Center, now known as HackensackUMC, discussed the issues of opioid addiction during a recent interview with MD Magazine. Contreras said the guidelines recently adopted by both the CDC and the US Food and Drug Administration have both positives and negatives that doctors will need to consider when treating these patients.