And by using the same scale over and over again with the patients, it's been shown that patients can very accurately measure the intensity of their pain and how much it improves with a therapeutic manipulation such as giving a medication. What if a patient does become empowered to the extent that that patient finds that the physician is not responding appropriately. Yeah, that's a very important question. I've come to talk about patients' rights now. I know that's a contentious issue, but I define these rights pretty narrowly, and I think patients have three rights.
Patients have a right to have their pain assessed.
They have a right to have the best available treatment, and they also have a right to referral to another doctor if their needs are not being met. If, after communicating that, their needs aren't met, then I think it's very appropriate for the patient to ask for a second opinion, or for a referral to a specialist. In the last fifteen, twenty years, there has emerged a field, a whole specialty, of pain management. So there are now people across the country who do pain management as their real livelihood in mainstream medicine. So there are professionals who are expert at this.