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<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; How, you may ask, does a theologian become an expert on the opioid crisis?</p><p>King&#8217;s College professor Joel Shuman has an explanation ahead of his scheduled presentation during the school&#8217;s Bessette Lecture on Medical Ethics on Monday, Feb. 4.</p><p>&#8220;I was a physical therapist for 10 years before switching to theology,&#8221; Shuman said during a phone interview from Duke University, where he is Visiting Scholar in Theology, Medicine and Culture this academic year. His work there is focused on how to approach the opioid crisis across multiple disciplines.</p><p>As a physical therapist, &#8220;I worked a lot with both acute and chronic pain, and treated patients who were physically dependent on opioids before there was an opioid crisis.&#8221; His past and present work give him a broad perspective on the problem, which he&#8217;ll bring to his lecture at Burke Auditorium of the William J. McGowan School of Business starting at 7 p.m.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll talk at some length about the origins of the opioid epidemic. There are several that are related to one another in a complicated way.&#8221;</p><p>It starts, he believes, &#8220;at the intersection of pain with what we expect from medicine. When we expect things that medicine may not be able to give, we look for answers in places where, perhaps, we should not.&#8221;</p><p>For a long time, he believes, medicine &#8220;made judicious use&#8221; of them, primarily for acute pain . Then Oxycontin hit the market, &#8220;and its makers marketed it very aggressively as a safe and less addictive alternative,&#8221; a claim now &#8220;proven totally not true.&#8221;</p><p>Other interrelated factors compounded the problem. Some insurance companies stopped paying for the more costly pain management options such as physical therapy. Physicians who often got only a few minutes with patients had little incentive to prescribe non-reimbursable treatments, and people who heard about the painkillers started demanding pills for chronic pain.</p><p>Fighting the epidemic is difficult partly because the causes are so complicated, but also because recovery from opioid addiction &#8220;is really tough. It takes a long time. It takes people willing to be with them through relapse.&#8221; It often requires medically-assisted treatment like methadone.</p><p>Some steps have been taken, including new guidelines to curb prescriptions and interstate databases making it harder to cross state lines and doctor shop for prescriptions. But Shuman recounts a depressing statistic from a person in Tennessee who said in a recent year there had been enough opioid prescriptions to provide more than one to every man, woman and child in the state.</p><p>&#8220;In many ways, the situation is pretty dire,&#8221; Shuman admitted. But he wants to leave the lecture audience &#8220;with hope, and to encourage them to think about the ways they may be able to be involved in the lives of people struggling to recover.</p><p>&#8220;Friendship is not a replacement for professional help in recovery but it&#8217;s an important piece of the puzzle.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Shuman </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/web1_Shuman-2.jpg</photo0><caption0>Shuman </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Mark Guydish</p><p>mguydish@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Religion and medicine meet: King’s theology professor to discuss opioid crisis