FREE NEJM E-TOC    HOME   |   SUBSCRIBE   |   CURRENT ISSUE   |   PAST ISSUES   |   COLLECTIONS   |   Search Term  Advanced Search

Sign in | Get NEJM's E-Mail Table of Contents — Free | Subscribe

Previous Volume 338:1231 April 23, 1998 Number 17 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

	Full Text Purchase this article Add to Personal Archive Add to Citation Manager Notify a Friend E-mail When Cited PubMed Citation

To the Editor: A disturbingly large percentage of dying patients experience unrelieved pain.¹ This percentage is far higher than it should be, given the availability of pain medications and the knowledge of how to use them.

Many physicians believe that they could risk disciplinary action if they use high doses of narcotics or other controlled substances to manage pain at the end of life.² They also believe that if they undertreat pain, they risk no professional consequences. Dying patients clearly have the right to adequate pain medication; this was recently recognized by the Supreme Court.^3,4

Physicians have not been held . . . [Full Text of this Article]

References

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Devlin, B., Bacanu, S.-A., Klump, K. L., Bulik, C. M., Fichter, M. M., Halmi, K. A., Kaplan, A. S., Strober, M., Treasure, J., Woodside, D. B., Berrettini, W. H., Kaye, W. H. (2002). Linkage analysis of anorexia nervosa incorporating behavioral covariates. Hum Mol Genet 11: 689-696 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Palmer, B. (2000). Eating disorders. Br. J. Psychiatry 176: 197-199 [Full Text]  
• Milligan, D. B., Tucker, K. L. (1998). Treatment of Pain in Dying Patients. NEJM 339: 705-707 [Full Text]  
• Walsh, B. T., Devlin, M. J. (1998). Eating Disorders: Progress and Problems. Science 280: 1387-1390 [Abstract] [Full Text]