"It's really sore," my (Josh's) five-year-old daughter said, cradling her broken arm in the emergency department. "But on a scale of 0 to 10, how do you rate your pain?" asked the nurse. My daughter's ...

Over the past two years, a simple but baffling request has preceded most of my encounters with medical professionals: “Rate your pain on a scale of zero to 10.” I trained as a physician and have asked ...

Attempt to obtain the patient's self-report, the single most reliable indicator of pain. Do not assume that a patient cannot report pain; many cognitively impaired patients are able to use a ...

"On a scale from one to ten, how would you rate your pain?" is the standard question doctors ask to assess pain. The problem is that pain tolerances vary, and one person's "three" may be someone ...