Responding Wisely to Persistent Pain: Insights from Patristic Theology and Clinical Experience
For most of the past generation, clinicians have been taught to treat patients' pain until the patient says it is relieved. The opioid crisis has forced both clinicians and patients to reconsider that approach. This essay considers how Christians in particular might assume and seek to overcome their experiences of persistent pain. Wise and faithful responses to pain, especially chronic pain, can take their bearings from how early Christians made sense of the place of both medicine and suffering in a faithful life. This results in not asking medicine to resolve persistent pain, especially not through the use of opioids. Resisting the impulse to medicalize chronic pain will require patience on the part of those who suffer, and both patience and fortitude on the part of the clinicians to whom they present.
Duke Scholars
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- 5004 Religious studies
- 5003 Philosophy
- 5001 Applied ethics
- 2203 Philosophy
Citation
Published In
DOI
EISSN
ISSN
Publication Date
Volume
Issue
Start / End Page
Related Subject Headings
- 5004 Religious studies
- 5003 Philosophy
- 5001 Applied ethics
- 2203 Philosophy