#05- Inaccurate Doctoral PAIN Assessments based on Guesses

April 11, 2017

Started from previous post- #04- Inaccurate PAIN Assessments with JUST Rate Pain from 0 to 10– ‘How much pain are you in? Rate your levels from 0 to 10.’ With just that question how do the doctor’s really assess my pain?

Based on their previous patients?
Based on their own personal experiences?
Based on what they think the problem really is?

How do any these assessments accurately assess MY PAIN?

In fact THEY DO NOT, it’s all a guess for them!

The work of the doctors could improve if they did all the estimating steps, mentioned IN DIFFERENT PAIN ASSESSMENT METHODS LIKE THE SOCRATES pain assessment, but in general a patient may get 10 minutes with a doctor or less because a 20 minute visit involves, weighing, nurse recording information, and this is all part of the 20 minutes allowed for the patient. My personal experience has shown that most doctors in the medical field do not even do the whole amount of work with asking all of the questions with the SOCRATES (pain assessment)[s] method, maybe because it just takes time OR maybe because of all the insecurities legal hassles have added to the doctors work.

The SOCRATES pain assessment AND Dr. Savages methods at least get more details than a basic rating to detail pain. Rhapsodie’s method for improving the assessing can also be good, but it requires a lot of work through a society of medical people and patients. So even though it will be shared later the relational corresponding pain chart is not necessarily a good thing because it has less personalization in corresponding factors than the work of Dr. Savage does.

SOCRATES (pain assessment) Information

This information is taken from Wikipedia.com, there may be more details in other places, but please my assessment of my personal care corresponding to the assessment first please. My results are placed in [square brackets] next to the corresponding questions:

SOCRATES is a mnemonic acronym used by emergency medical services, doctors, nurses and other health professionals to evaluate the nature of pain that a patient is experiencing.

Meaning of the [SOCRATES] acronym

The acronym is used to gain an insight into the patient‘s condition, and to allow the Health Care Provider to develop a plan for dealing with it.^[1]^[2]

Site – Where is the pain? Or the maximal site of the pain. [PARTIALLY ASKED]
Onset – When did the pain start, and was it sudden or gradual? Include also whether if it is progressive or regressive. [PARTIALLY ASKED]
Character – What is the pain like? An ache? Stabbing? [NEVER ASKED]
Radiation – Does the pain radiate anywhere? (See also Radiation.) [NEVER ASKED]
Associations – Any other signs or symptoms associated with the pain? [NEVER ASKED]
Time course – Does the pain follow any pattern? [NEVER ASKED]
Exacerbating/Relieving factors – Does anything change the pain? [What drugs do you use to care for the pain? The best pain treatment for me has come with the use of prescribed ANTIBIOTICS!]
Severity – How bad is the pain? [RATE your pain FROM 0 to 10]

This was from Wikipedia.com at this page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOCRATES_(pain_assessment)

But there is a lot more information needed, especially when the information gathered does not get enough detail to make an accurate assessment or if an individual is not exactly the norm. It’s a lot easier for a busy person to say, “this person is suffering …” when they do not do the work, then when they take the energy, time and effort to make an accurate assessment. In fact a person like me can be diagnosed as being a drug abuser or suffering chronic pain because the doctors have no true idea of what they are hearing from me.

As stated previously ‘with no relational corresponding pain chart there is more space for inaccuracies.’ There is also more likelihood of not doing more work based on the inaccurate assessments already made and reported on by doctors. This in turn enhances the likelihood that a basic to care for problem is made worse, like I am having…