As a physician and a public health professional, we have experienced pain in different ways, but we also share a common bond of experience with those we have cared for professionally or personally. Those experiences shaped the way we approached the request of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to co-chair a committee to assess the impact of pain in America. Our experiences extend from
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Relieving Pain in America: A Blueprint for Transforming Prevention, Care, Education, and Research
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the care of individuals to evaluation of health and disease in populations, and we were joined by an outstanding group of individuals with deep knowledge of the biological, psychosocial, ethical, legal, clinical, and deeply personal aspects of pain and suffering. Over an intense 5-month period, we shared facts and figures, perceptions and realities, knowledge and assumptions, and listened carefully to each other and to the dozens of individuals and groups who provided testimony at our public meetings, as well as the thousands who shared their stories, hopes, dis- appointment, and anger in their written comments and testimonials. Throughout this process, we received extraordinary support from the IOM—especially from Adrienne Stith-Butler and Thelma Cox. We also benefited from the writing skills of Victoria and Neal Weisfeld. We have been enriched by all these experiences and encounters and have tried to respond to the pleas of many for recognition, understanding, and help. While we came to this study with our own expectations, we have recognized as a consequence of our shared efforts that the magnitude of the pain suffered by individuals and the associated costs constitute a crisis for America, both human and economic. We recognize further that approaching pain at both the individual and the broader population levels will require a transforma- tion in how Americans think and act individually and collectively regarding pain and suffering. We believe this transformation represents a moral and national imperative.