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Tips for Addressing Addiction at Work “Using medications or substances of abuse at work is going to affect patient care. It’s going to affect communication with team members. It’s going to affect the substance abuser’s personal health and safety, as well as the health and safety of those around them,” says Heidi L. Shafford, DVM, PhD, DACVA, owner of Veterinary Anesthesia Specialists, LLC. If you suspect someone on your team has a substance abuse problem, Donna J. Scott, PhD, of the Counseling and Wellness Services
department at Washington State University College of Veterinary Medicine, suggests identifying resources and obtaining professional input for what you see and what you should do. For instance: 1. Find out if your state has a mandated program or agency to help impaired health care professionals that includes veterinarians. “The Washington Physicians Health Program does include veterinarians,” Scott says. “They can give advice and guidance and actually offer help that includes evaluations and support groups for people dealing with substance abuse problems.”
2. Contact a community mental health center or private outpatient program if access to a mandated program or agency isn’t available. “These organizations often have some kind of outpatient substance abuse program,” Scott says. “They’re usually happy to give advice.” If someone is coming back to a hospital setting or clinic setting, there can be some discomfort. People often think if someone has
Xxx
gone someplace and addressed these issues when they come back, things should go back to the way things were before, only without this problem. But usually when someone who goes away to address these issues comes back, they are going to need some time to go to meetings, to settle back in; they’re going to need to make some adjustments in their workload and ease back in, and not take on so much, and make some adjustments in what they do after hours. There are a lot of issues to think about. The person in charge has to have a dialogue with the person re-entering and ask, How can we help? How do things need to change? If you are the person coming back in, be proactive about asking for help. Keep in mind, people want you to be successful.
“[Addiction] is an illness, and I think we, as a profession, need to embrace
this as a health concern.” —Heidi L. Shafford, DVM, PhD, DACVA
some programs. He came back, and then he relapsed, which frequently occurs. I finally had to let him go. I don’t know what happened to him, and I feel bad for him, but it helped me realize that recov- ery is a lifetime process.”
Addiction-savvy practices “Contrary to what most people think, substance abuse is a continuum,” Pace says. “For instance, when many of us imagine an alcoholic, we picture the poor guy who lives under a bridge, but he’s the very tip of the iceberg. In point of fact, about 30% of the population engage in risky drinking—risky enough to affect their ability to work and to raise all sorts of low-level, below-the-radar kind of issues.” Establishing a drug-free workplace pol-
icy, complete with all of the accompany- ing HR, legal and procedural steps, is one way to address drug use in your practice. Conducting pre-employment drug
screens is another precaution, but Pace warns that drug tests don’t provide all of the assurances many employers want.
Trends magazine, April 2013
“What does pre-employment drug
testing tell you? It tells you someone didn’t use for a certain period of time before they came to the interview. It doesn’t tell you if someone has a prob- lem,” Pace says. Ultimately, workplace education is
one of the best precautions employers can take.
“Education makes people more aware
of what they could possibly see in the workplace and, hopefully, it allows you to possibly intervene before people get so darn sick that they divert drugs or narcotics from the veterinary practice,” Pace says. n
Jan Thomas is the principal of Thomas Hunt LLC.
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