Lots of times the root causes if pain aren’t fixable. It’s easy to blame doctors (or be un-gracious to them 
) but all this happened in an environment where hospitals were accredited in part because of how they were assessing and managing pain and use of meds was encouraged.
Also, docs jobs depend on patient satisfaction surveys. You know what is certain to get you low marks? Telling someone in pain they can’t get opioids.
There is plenty of blame to go around for the opioid mess. Docs, drug companies, patients, government, accreditation bodies, the media. No need to pin it all on the physicians.
I admit I have some bias though.
And I think all this is ultimately bad for patients. I think the pendulum probably has swung too far in the other direction.
The reason opioids were used is because they were the best option. There isn’t a great substitute. So now we will have people sitting in pain because we are scared of addiction. It’s hard.
I should have been more clear - there's no doubt it's a systemic issue. Medicine practiced American style though does seem way too overly focused on using meds or surgery to address problems, when often a more holistic approach might be more effective in the long run.
By the pendulum having swung too far do you mean it's now too hard for deserving patients to be treated for pain? Collectively I bet Americans are still by far the most heavily prescribed pain patients in the universe.
