A study appearing today in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that white people are more likely to receive powerful narcotic medications for pain when being treated at emergency rooms than their non-white counterparts.It revealed that some doctors show preferential treatment to white patients out of the assumption that a minority patient will abuse the more potent opioid pain meds.Ironically,while Hispanics are catching up to whites in the abuse of prescription drugs,blacks are less likely statistically to abuse prescription narcotics.The study was federally funded and data culled from ER visits to 500 hospitals for 4 weeks a year over the course of 13 years.It noted that minorities being treated at ER's for pain are more apt to be given ibuprofen,aspirin or similar nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory pain medications.
Advances in pain management protocol and policy are helping to close the gap,according to doctors involved in the study.
