He was provided no pain medication at all and family pleas were ignored. Only the family's decision to replace the attending physician summarily with a more compassionate doctor allowed him to die in peace. A doctor confronted with the obvious suffering of a woman dying of cancer refused to administer pain medications. Physicians have an ethical, moral and legal obligation to manage pain or to assure that the patient is referred to another doctor who is competent and willing to do so. Still, the patient or the patient's agent or advocate will have to play an active and assertive role in making sure that the ethical obligation translates into comfort for the patient.
Doctors are authority figures upon whom patients depend for their very survival.
Taking an assertive stand may be very difficult for the patient or the immediate family. This list is a series of self-help steps for a patient or, more realistically, his or her advocate to take when pain is unchecked. If the pain is very severe, the advocate should be prepared to walk through them very quickly. Even a hour of severe pain lasts forever. Doctors and hospitals or nursing homes can be very intimidating for a family but this is a situation in which doctor does not know best.