Pain Management

As discussed above, this guidebook is intended as an informative guide to the legal constraints to effective pain relief. The materials in this bibliography include information on intractable pain statutes in general, with some specific references to articles addressing the clinical, legal, and regulatory barriers to the management of pain. The emphasis is on the legal and regulatory barriers to effective pain management. However, the focus of the project, in line with the Institute of Human Values in Health Care’s mission, is on the medical, ethical and legal impact of these barriers on other factors such as professional training, institutional organization, or social constructs. As such, this bibliography is aimed at researchers who are interested in developing new scholarship on legal and regulatory issues as they relate to pain management. Many of the materials, however, are also appropriate for lay persons wishing to discover how state medical boards are organized or how its appeals process works. The intent was to avoid policy or politically oriented materials and focus on consumer and advocate information. Since much of this literature is relatively new, materials written before 1990 were generally excluded. Entries are alphabetized according to category (i.e., State and Federal Statutes/Regulations; Government Publications, etc.).

Obscure publications are, for the most part, excluded. Most of the materials included in this report are easily obtained from any law library or academic research center. However, the Institute of Human Values at the Medical University of South Carolina can assist those individuals without access to such facilities. Any questions or comments should be submitted to the program office at the address listed below. The resource search for this bibliography was conducted in the Law Library at Brooklyn Law School, the College of Physicians and Surgeons Medical Library at Columbia University, and, finally, at the Medical University of South Carolina. Additionally, some general health care, Medicare, and Medicaid web sites are listed, as well as other sources that were retrieved from online search programs like FirstSearch, Westlaw, and Lexis/ Nexis. Finally, some resources were obtained from the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) extensive Resource Information Center and Publications Department in Washington, D.C. AARP has many resources of interest to older adults and senior advocates. The Uniform System of Citation was used for reference cites, but was modified to include the author and publication full name, when necessary.

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