Patients undergoing approximately 10 common outpatient general surgical operations will be given a narcotic prescription for a specified number of pills.

Inpatients who are about to be discharged after surgery or trauma will be given narcotic prescriptions for a specified number of pills. Patients will be given a patient report form which they will use to record the number of pills they take each day and their daily pain score on a scale of 0-10.

Inclusion Criteria:

• >= 18 years of age
• undergoing one of 9 elective outpatient operations: partial mastectomy, partial mastectomy and sentinel node biopsy, melanoma wide excision and sentinel node excision, thyroidectomy, parathyroidectomy, open inguinal hernia repair, laparoscopic inguinal hernia repair, laparoscopic cholecystectomy OR
• an inpatient on the general surgery service who took at least one oral narcotic

Exclusion Criteria:

• allergic to all narcotics
• chronic opioid use
• history of opioid or benzodiazepine abuse

>= 18 years of age undergoing one of 9 elective outpatient operations: partial mastectomy, partial mastectomy and sentinel node biopsy, melanoma wide excision and sentinel node excision, thyroidectomy, parathyroidectomy, open inguinal hernia repair, laparoscopic inguinal hernia repair, laparoscopic cholecystectomy OR an inpatient on the general surgery service who took at least one oral narcotic in the 24 hrs prior to discharge