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Abstract
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On June 1st, 2022, a lone gunman, Michael Louis, walked into a medical office building in Tulsa, OK, and with a semi-automatic rifle and a semi-automatic handgun, shot and killed 4 people prior to turning his gun on himself and taking his own life. This was the 233rd mass shooting in the United States in the first half of 2022, and given the nation's ongoing mass shooting epidemic, the story's national interest waned quickly. Coverage by Tulsa's leading daily newspaper, Tulsa World, continued, however, providing additional details of the tragic incident.
Readers may be questioning the relevance of yet another mass shooting in the United States to the international pain community. The assailant, Mr. Louis, suffered from chronic low back pain, and among the victims were the orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Preston Phillips, who had performed a spinal fusion from L3 to S1 on the patient on May 19th, as well as another physician. According to Tulsa World, Mr. Louis was discharged from the hospital on May 24th, subsequent to which he experienced ongoing pain for which he blamed Dr. Phillips. Tulsa police reported that they found a letter from the assailant stating that he blamed his surgeon for his ongoing pain and that he intended to kill him, as well as anyone else who got in his way. Mr. Louis reportedly contacted Dr. Phillips on numerous occasions between his discharge from the hospital and his final appointment with the surgeon on May 31st. Although it was reported that Mr. Louis was distressed by his pain following his surgery, police reports indicate that he was also extremely unhappy regarding a number of functional deficits with which he was left post-operatively (Captain Richard Meulenberg, personal communication, June 24, 2022).
Reports from a number of media outlets were rife with assumptions and inaccuracies regarding the cause of Mr. Louis's rampage. For example, the libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute, published a commentary in Reason less than a week following the shootings.3 In the commentary, the authors (both of whom are surgeons) claimed that "America's Failed Opioid Policy Drove the Tulsa Shooter to Violence". Another less-than-mainstream media source assigned blame to an Oklahoma state law that limits opioid prescribing to 7 days post-operatively.4 This claim is misleading, at best. According to the 2018 state law,5 initial prescription of post-operative Schedule II opioids is limited to 7 days, although the physician has the right to subsequently refill the prescription following the 7-day period. The speculation on social media regarding the relationship between Dr. Phiillips' alleged failure to provide adequate opioid analgesia and the mass shooting tragedy was even more irresponsible and rife with unsubstantiated claims than that of the mainstream media, tabloids and blogs, which is hardly surprising.6 According to a source from the Tulsa Police Department, there is no evidence that the mass shooting was necessarily related to a failure to provide the perpetrator with adequate opioid analgesia (Captain Richard Meulenberg, personal communication, June 24, 2022)...
Language: en |