I'm a medical student. One of my patients is a pharmacist whose boyfriend (a nurse) was a long-time heroin addict. He got endocarditis, a life-treatening infection of the heart valves, due to his use of IV drugs. He had to get his valve surgically replaced, and on the day he was released from the hospital, he shot up in her bathroom.

She realized that she could never understand that kind of addiction, where you could be pulled from the clutches of death just to temp it again as soon as you got the chance. And she wanted to understand. So she started stealing and using prescription opiates from her job, seeking a better understanding of what it's like to be a drug addict.

One month later, she's here in the hospital for the same thing her boyfriend had - endocarditis. Thankfully, it was caught early and she didn't need surgery, but while she was in the hospital, she was withdrawing pretty viciously. Her story spread quickly, and she obviously garnered a LOT of dirty looks and remarks from the medical staff. A pharmacist abusing her own drugs doesn't really earn a lot of respect.

But I'm of the opinion that it's not our job as medical professionals to judge patients or to decide whether or not they "deserve" what's happening to them. I feel a lot of sympathy for people with lung cancer, for example, regardless of if they smoked their whole life or not. Withdrawal and endocarditis aren't punishments that fit the crime. Think about it. She almost died and spent a week in utter agony for - what? For wanting to understand something she didn't understand? For using a drug that makes you happy? If I wrote the rules of the universe, I would have some changes to make.

Anyway, my point is this: today was her last day in the hospital before she went off to rehab, and in front of her family and my team, she thanked me for everything, and especially for being the only one who never judged her. Of course I talked with her about rehab and staying away from bad influences and not overestimating her own ability to quit using, and why what she did was wrong, but I made sure to never make her feel like she deserved to be miserable. Because she didn't. She knew what she did was wrong, and she was genuinely repentant. And I was glad that the rest of my team - who had been constantly rolling their eyes and calling her an idiot behind her back - got that feedback. I have a lot of confidence that she'll use this experience in a positive way throughout her life, and maybe even become a sponsor for future pharmacists who abuse their privileges. If I never believed in her, the pessimism would rub off on her and she'd go right back to using again. I lost a friend to heroin addiction because no one ever believed he could be better than that, but that's another story.

Anyway, sorry for the novel. I had to get that off my chest.