Chronic pain is phenomenon that impacts the life of the individual in profound ways, as it is experienced not only nociceptively, but emotionally, socially, vocationally, financially, legally and spiritually as well. That way to the patient represents chronic pain a challenge unlike that associated with any other type of physical condition.
The doctor who is expertly and personally brave enough and accepts the challenges to make chronic pain management will be in his or her clinical practice faced with myriad of ethical dilemmas. This article was written in order to help in the care of the chronic pain patiens to understand some basic ethical issues.
Because majority of publications attend to ethical issues of first cancer pain, we wished to call attention to ethical issues of chronic nonmalignant pain. The article is divided into several parts.
First call attention to delimitation of ethic conception, follow delimitation of medical ethic and related necessity of education in ethic in pregradual, postgradual and also lifelong medical education. Further that article specifies ethical virtues and ethical decision making applied in chronic nonmalignant pain management.
Offers some ethical dilemmas both from the side of algesiologist and especially from the side of patient. Last but not lest states formulation of Charter of pain management of American Academy of Pain Medicine, in terms of ethic offers related range of duties of algesiologist and ethical principles for management of chronic nonmalignant pain.
The main goal of the article is to provide algesiologists with new ethical insights, consideration, dilemmas and challenges, that will help them efectively manage patient with chronic nonmalignant pain virtuously. The chronic nonmalignant pain management is always based on relationship between algesiologist and patient.
High professional, emphasizing, emphatic and legal treatment of pain focused on ethical aspects will help to build optimal relationship between doctor and patient. It will also positively influent success of chronic nonmalignant pain patient management.