I believe that any physician would be hard pressed to defend the inadequate pain care in this particular case. It is painful to read about the way this poor patient had to spend his final days. The medical management by both Dr. V. and Dr. W showed a poor knowledge of analgesic pharmacology, and unfortunately, neither physician requested a consultation with a pain medicine specialist. The care given by the nursing staffs at both MD and BCC was equally inadequate. In addition to the inadequate state of education in pain care and its obvious reflection in this medical case, another area of concern in the Tomlinson case is the way this matter was handled in the legal arena. A complaint was appropriately filed with the MBC, California DHS, and CMS to deal with the physicians and two facilities that took part in the care of Mr. Tomlinson and were responsible for the inadequate care he received and the suffering he had to endure. However, as pointed out in Ms. Tucker's article, the state medical negligence law in California does not permit “pain and suffering damages” to survive death. “Thus there would be no damages recoverable for Mr. Tomlinson's pain and suffering under a medical negligence claim in California,” according to Ms. Tucker. Rather than live within this law, the plaintiffs' counsel opted to pursue a tort case as elder abuse, which required the plaintiffs to prove recklessness, rather than medical negligence, on the part of the defendants in court. This move was based on a precedent in an earlier case ( Bergman v. Eden Medical Center ). The use of this legal move is the most troublesome part of this case for physicians. I cannot imagine a physician who would not be in agreement with the Tomlinson's family being awarded monetary damages …