The impaired physician: changes from the traditional view

The traditional impaired physician has been a "therapeutic addict," self-medicating pain, fatigue, or stress. The rise of recreational drug abuse in the population from which physicians are drawn has led to a new breed of "nontherapeutic addicts" who, like their street counterparts, primarily use drugs for euphoria and tend to be polysubstance abusers. This may have important implications for prevention and treatment. Treatment outcome, in general, for impaired physicians has been assumed to be better than for other drug abusers but the studies have lacked adequate controls, need broader outcome measures, and may not be relevant to the new type of abuser.