ABSTRACT
Pain is distinguishable in a number of important ways from suffering. It is virtually axiomatic that pain can exist in the absence of suffering and that the opposite is equally true. The commonly identified barriers to pain relief are not merely clinical in nature, but have important ethical dimensions. There are many perspectives from which one might consider the interrelationship between pain and society, that is, the impact that a particular configuration of social norms, customs, and experiences has on an individual’s particularized experience of pain and search for relief. The hegemony of the curative model in modern medical education and medical practice has, it can be argued, displaced the relief of pain and suffering from its traditional status as a fundamental goal and core value of medicine. Opiophobia and an ethic of undertreating pain are aspects of clinical practice that are international in scope and negatively impact all patients with pain.
