Description:

The Master of Arts in Medical Humanities & Bioethics Program presents

A Montgomery Lecture

with

Megan Crowley-Matoka, PhD
Associate Professor, Medical Education
Faculty, Medical Humanities & Bioethics Graduate Program
Member, Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Opioids, Epidemics, and the Rise of the Urine Drug Screen

Chronic pain has been at the center of entwined crises in the contemporary U.S. concerning both the under- and the over-treatment of pain. Steeply climbing rates of overdose deaths involving prescription painkillers created intense pressure to change pain management practices. One of the most immediate and widespread responses to this pressure has been a dramatically increased reliance on a time-worn, rather humble form of patient surveillance: the urine drug screen (UDS). This talk will explore some of the unanticipated effects of this reinvigorated role for UDS as they unfold "on the ground" in patient experience, clinical relations, and public policy.