Improving Treatment of Chronic Pain
Research shows that serious, chronic pain is the primary reason most Americans seek medical treatment, but intense public and political scrutiny of pain treatments, particularly prescription narcotics, has forced many patients to live with crippling pain unnecessarily. Many patients believe pain, as a side effect of injury or disease, must be tolerated rather than controlled with medications, while some doctors and nurses feel they must err on the side of under-prescribing powerful narcotics for fear of legal prosecution.
