Forrest Pasanski, JD, and Steven Roskos, MD, presented at the Bioethics for Breakfast event on April 20, 2017, offering perspective and insight on the topic, “Treating Pain Without Feeding Addiction: Is There a Goldilocks Solution?”

In August 2016 the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) created a permanent Drug Monitoring Section to stem the state’s prescription drug abuse epidemic, tightening its monitoring of physicians’ opioid prescribing. Certainly as the ones who write the prescriptions, physicians should help remedy the prescription opioid epidemic. But they also have a responsibility to effectively manage the pain their patients experience. In striving to meet one of these responsibilities, will they fail to meet the other? Or is there a place in the middle that is ethically “just right?” How might they optimally collaborate with the state to ensure the best interests of its citizens?

Mr. Pasanski discussed the scope of the opioid epidemic in Michigan as well and the state’s response, highlighting efforts to identify, investigate, and take substantial licensing actions against overprescribers. Dr. Roskos offered a physician perspective, touching on trust in the doctor-patient relationship and how state regulations may create tension within that relationship.

Forrest Pasanski, JD
Forrest Pasanski, JD, is Regulation Section Manager, Drug Monitoring Section for State of Michigan, Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, Bureau of Professional Licensing where he oversees the Michigan Automated Prescription System (MAPS) and staff who identify, investigate, and bring administrative actions against health professionals who overprescribe, overdispense or divert controlled substances. He studied philosophy and political science at Grand Valley State University and graduated from the Michigan State University College of Law.

Steven Roskos, MD
Steven E. Roskos, MD, is an associate professor in the Department of Family Medicine in the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, where he also serves as associate chair for academic affairs. He received his MD from Temple University School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and completed a family medicine residency at Lancaster General Hospital, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Dr. Roskos practiced in southern Appalachia for seven years, then taught at the University of Tennessee before completing a fellowship in academic medicine at Michigan State and then joining the faculty. He has a clinical interest in treating patients with chronic pain and served on the Michigan Advisory Committee on Pain and Symptom Management for five years.

About Bioethics for Breakfast:
In 2010, Hall, Render, Killian, Heath & Lyman invited the Center for Ethics to partner on a bioethics seminar series. The Center for Ethics and Hall Render invite guests from the health professions, religious and community organizations, political circles, and the academy to engage in lively discussions of topics spanning the worlds of bioethics, health law, business, and policy. For each event, the Center selects from a wide range of controversial issues and provides two presenters either from our own faculty or invited guests, who offer distinctive, and sometimes clashing, perspectives. Those brief presentations are followed by a moderated open discussion.