TY - JOUR T1 - <em>Optimal relief</em> for pain at the end of life: a caregiver’s tale JF - Medical Humanities JO - J Med Humanit DO - 10.1136/medhum-2017-011427 SP - medhum-2017-011427 AU - David B Morris Y1 - 2018/04/18 UR - http://mh.bmj.com/content/early/2018/04/18/medhum-2017-011427.abstract N2 - The current opioid crisis—driven partly by medical overprescription and partly by illegal drug abuse—is a significant cultural and professional dilemma in the USA and elsewhere. It has produced a strong reaction in favour of restricting medical use of opioids for pain, especially chronic pain. The author for a quarter century has written about pain from a biocultural perspective, and in this essay—based on his experience as primary caregiver for his late wife—he approaches the question of appropriate opioid use at the end of life. ER -