The diagnosis and treatment of various kinds of pain; ethical issues involved in providing, or more commonly, withholding such treatment.

In 1994, the New England Journal of Medicine published a forum on ethical questions concerning pain management in children. The forum began its discussion by acknowledging that the medical community at large fails to provide effective pain relief for children and infants. The forum cited recent studies which found that "pain can be relieved effectively in 90 percent of patients but is not relieved effectively in 80 percent of patients." In children the failure to relieve pain is even more pronounced. Forum participants cited a study which found that postoperative analgesics were administered to children far more infrequently, or in lower doses, than to adults—even when both had undergone the same operation.

The forum considered several issues regarding the medical establishment's reluctance to provide...