Dr. Rogers and Dr. Wang discuss opioid-free discharge after kidney cancer surgery

In this video, Craig G. Rogers, MD, and Katherine Wang, MD, discuss the Urology Practice study “Practice-Level Variation in Opioid-Free Discharge Following Surgery for T1 Renal Masses: A MUSIC-KIDNEY Analysis.” Rogers is director of renal surgery at Henry Ford Hospital, director of urologic oncology at Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital, program director of the urology clinical research fellowship, program director of the robotic urology fellowship, medical director of the Vattikuti Urology Institute Center for Outcomes Research Analytics and Evaluation, and chair of the Henry Ford Department of Urology at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Michigan. Wang is a research fellow in the department of urology at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Michigan.

Transcription:

What is take-home message for the practicing urologist?

Rogers: For me, the take-home message is that reduced or even no-narcotic discharge for patients after kidney surgery is feasible, and that it really should be our mindset of, can we reduce the amount of opioids we use? And that will take intentionality on the part of the surgeon as part of the team, whether it's the APPs that are part of the discharge, the residents; everyone needs to be on board with this. We get in these ruts of just doing things the same all the time, because that's the way we've always done it. And it takes research like this to kind of wake up a little bit to say, we don't always have to do it the same way. There are better ways, safer ways of doing things. So my take-home message is sort of a call to action that we can look at how we're doing our pain control in our patients.

Is there anything you would like to add?

Wang: I would just like to plug that MUSIC did make a brochure for patient education on managing pain. And that's been something that we've been utilizing as well as other practices participating in MUSIC. We've never actually evaluated what patients think of it, but I'm sure it's been helpful for them to understand what are the implications of your procedure and what are the ways that we can manage your pain aside from opioids.

This transcription was edited for clarity.