Mark D. Sullivan, MD, PhD, is a Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences as well as Adjunct Professor of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine and Adjunct Professor of Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Washington.
Jane C. Ballantyne, MD, FRCA, is board certified anesthesiologist at UW Medical Center and a UW professor (retired) of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine and Director of the UW Pain Fellowship.

• Preface


• Acknowledgments


• Chapter 1. The problems of pain in Western Society


• Chapter 2. The medical dream of conquering pain


• Chapter 3. The emergence of a right to pain relief: A change in the meaning of pain


• Chapter 4. Chronic pain as a disease


• Chapter 5. Looking beyond a biopsychosocial model of pain


• Chapter 6. Pain medicine and the medicalization of chronic pain


• Chapter 7. Selling opioids as targeted painkillers


• Chapter 8. From causal to moral models of pain and the right to pain relief


• Chapter 9. Finding a place for pain in medicine, in policy, and in life


• Chapter 10. Clinician's perspective: Dr. Clark's tale


• Chapter 11. Patient's perspective: My name is Reggie Winston


• Index

Containing patient vignettes as well as scientific and policy controversies that have emerged as the opioid epidemic has evolved, The Right to Pain Relief and Other Deep Roots of the Opioid Epidemic examines the ethical and scientific concepts about pain that made the opioid epidemic possible and offers a new lens through which to view the opioid epidemic as a consequence of serious misunderstandings of both opioids and pain.