PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - David B Morris TI - <em>Optimal relief</em> for pain at the end of life: a caregiver’s tale AID - 10.1136/medhum-2017-011427 DP - 2018 Jun 01 TA - Medical Humanities PG - 120--124 VI - 44 IP - 2 4099 - http://mh.bmj.com/content/44/2/120.short 4100 - http://mh.bmj.com/content/44/2/120.full SO - J Med Humanit2018 Jun 01; 44 AB - 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.