US man blames surgeon for back pain after spine surgery; kills him and three others,” screamed the headline flashing around in the news recently. A patient armed with a gun had shot his doctor at a hospital in Oklahoma in one of the most developed countries of the world, destroying lives that were full of promise. He was allegedly unhappy with unremitting pain following surgery that had been performed only a few weeks prior. He had bought a rifle hours before the rampage of his despicable act and killed the surgeon, his colleague, the receptionist, and a bystander who took a bullet for his wife, robbing four people the gift of life.

Many people have asked me why I returned from the United States after having trained there for a couple of years, and I think I finally have an answer. More than two-thirds of pain specialists surveyed during a violence education session at a 2019 American Academy of Pain Medicine meeting said a patient has threatened them with bodily harm at least once a year. Nearly half said they had been threatened over opioid management.