Ethical issues related to pain control

Two fundamental ethical questions involved in all health care decisions: what attitudes and practices enhance human values and what attitudes and practices diminish human values? Specifically, in the area of pain control, the ethical dilemma of balancing therapeutic relief with toxic side-effects is complicated by two salient factors. First is the need for an understanding of ethics that recognizes pain control as a crucial ethical issue. Second is the need to examine myths, attitudes, and behaviors in clinical practice that result in restrictive, insensitive, and inappropriate rationing of pain relief.