Responsible Opioid Prescribing: A Clinician's Guide offers clinicians effective strategies for reducing the risk of addiction, abuse and diversion of opioids that they prescribe for their patients in pain. Written by pain medicine specialist Scott M. Fishman, M.D., this revised and expanded edition offers important new material, including research on opioid prescribing that was not available when the first edition was published in 2007, and updated recommendations for prescribers. The update is especially important given the rise of opioid abuse and related deaths in the United States as well as the ongoing need for legitimate patient access to pain medications.

Revised and Expanded
The expanded Clinician's Guide translates best-practice guidelines from leading pain medicine societies and the Federation of State Medical Boards into pragmatic steps for risk reduction and improved patient care, including:

• Patient evaluation, including risk assessment
• Treatment plans that incorporate functional goals
• Informed consent and prescribing agreements
• Periodic review and monitoring of patients
• Referral and patient management
• Documentation
• Compliance with state and federal law
• Patient education on safe use, storage and disposal of opioid medication
• Termination strategies for chronic opioid therapy

Since publication of the first edition in 2007, Responsible Opioid Prescribing has been widely used and supported in the medical and regulatory communities as the leading continuing medical education (CME) activity for prescribers of opioid medications.

Scott M. Fishman, M.D., is a leading pain medicine clinician, researcher, teacher, lecturer, and writer. He is Chief of the Division of Pain Medicine and Professor of Anesthesiology at the University of California, Davis. He has been board certified in Internal Medicine, Psychiatry, Hospice and Palliative Medicine, and Pain Medicine, is Past President of the American Academy of Pain Medicine, and Past Chair of the Board of the American Pain Foundation, and is author of The War on Pain and Listening to Pain, coauthor of Spinal Cord Stimulation, and coeditor of Bonica’s Management of Pain and Essentials of Pain Medicine and Regional Anesthesia.