The November issue of AJOB is available at bioethics.net. This special thematic issue addresses the issue of pain agreements between patients and physicians and the ethical issues raised by creating contractual relations between those using opioids and those prescribing them.

How are pain agreements/contracts different from informed consent?
What are the moral responsibilities of patients not to divert their medications and of physicians to prevent such diversion? Do pain agreements achieve that goal?
What effect do such agreements have on the physician-patient relationship?

These questions and more are but a few of the thorny issues raised, and potentially answered in this important issue of AJOB. An ethical issue little addressed in the bioethics literature, this November issue provides the definitive set of articles about the ethics of these increasingly popular law enforcement and medical agreements.

To read the Target Article and the commentaries written in response, click here.

This is an issue not to miss.

Summer McGee, PhD