Commentary: Opioid crisis needs prevention, not just a band-aid

In medical school I learned to record four vital signs to assess my patients: blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate and temperature. Later, health regulators required the measurement of a “fifth vital sign” to determine pain. Patients were asked to rate their pain on a scale from 1 to 10. Once we knew the pain level, we treated the pain, often with opioids. This caused problems because pain is not a vital sign, pain is a symptom. Pain cannot be objectively measured; any measur