groups in the United States who are proposing a constitutional amendment for children's rights.
It is most important for the physician, especially, to mention one of the greatest fears of all people, that of pain and suffering. In planning a program of treatment for a patient, health providers must always determine how the patient feels. The great physician, Sir William Osier, was very interested in how his patients felt. On every visit he touched and spoke to his patients while looking them straight in the eyes. This method provided opportunity for valuable observation, but at the same time required and conveyed complete honesty between doctor and patient.
There is great controversy in the United States about patients with uncontrollable pain or incurable conditions, who wish euthanasia. (Slide) "The purpose of the modern physician is not to use each new advance in technology to prolong suffering, but to comfort, to cure when he can and to always relieve suffering." Children should not be excluded from relief of pain. Control of pain is a primal value for quality of life. This was one of the first and most important measures for quality of life studied by the health profession. Japan has excelled in its contributions for health related quality of life studies. A broad spectrum of studies of pharmacological products has been performed in reference to quality of life.
Let me point out an excellent source regarding quality of life given to me by Dr. Carolyn M. Clancy, Director of the United State's Center for Outcomes and Effectiveness Research. This source is the "Users' Guide to the Medical Literature XII, How to Use Articles About Health-Related Quality of Life," by Gordon H. Guyatt, et al., JAMA, April 16, 1997, Vol. 277, No 15. Research in this area should not be just a "rush to try to demonstrate value in health care...to measure whatever we can count but to identify
