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During the past 15 months, the world lost two women who greatly influenced healthcare's approach to treating patients in pain and helping terminally ill patients die with dignity.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, MD, who is credited with promoting palliative care at home as part of hospice, died August 24, 2004. Known for her revolutionary work On Death and Dying, Dr Kubler-Ross became a primary authority on the process of death and the tools that physicians and social workers should use to facilitate a better death.

Dame Cicely Mary Strode Saunders, OM, DBE, a prominent British nurse, physician, and writer most noted for her role in creating the hospice movement, died July 14, 2005. She founded St Christopher's Hospice, the first purpose-built hospice, in south London in 1967.

Hospice provides expert relief of pain and symptoms in combination with holistic care. Such care is directed at meeting the physical, social, psychological, and spiritual needs of not only hospice patients, but also those needs of their families and friends.

The four 2005 JAOA supplements focusing on pain management have been produced with an unrestricted educational grant from Purdue Pharma LP. The editors and authors who participated in the production of this series hope that these supplements will better serve the needs of osteopathic physicians in providing comfort to patients in persistent nonmalignant or malignant pain and at end of life, upholding the osteopathic medical profession's dedication to the principle of holistic care.

This series concludes with the American Osteopathic Association's policy statements on the issues especially relevant to pain management—(1) use of opioid medications with impunity when use is medically necessary, (2) patients' rights to treatment for intractable nonmalignant pain, and (3) end-of-life care.

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