Alex Ram

Disease and injury cause suffering in humans and animals. Health care addresses this suffering in many ways, in medicine, clinical psychology, psychotherapy, alternative medicine, hygiene, public health, and through various health care providers.

Health care approaches to suffering, however, remain problematic, according to Eric Cassell, the most cited author on that subject. Cassell writes: "The obligation of physicians to relieve human suffering stretches back to antiquity. Despite this fact, little attention is explicitly given to the problem of suffering in medical education, research or practice." Cassell defines suffering as "the state of severe distress associated with events that threaten the intactness of the person." Medicine makes a strong distinction between physical pain and suffering, and most attention goes to the treatment of pain. Nevertheless, physical pain itself still lacks adequate attention from the medical community, according to numerous reports. Besides, some medical fields like palliative care, pain management, oncology, or psychiatry, does somewhat address suffering 'as such'. In palliative care, for instance, pioneer Cicely Saunders created the concept of 'total pain' ('total suffering' say now the textbooks), which encompasses the whole set of physical and mental distress, discomfort, symptoms, problems, or needs that a patient may experience hurtfully.


Adapted from the Wikipedia article Suffering, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki