I don't know much about the American medical system, but in Canada, once you get into palliative care, you basically get put on narcotics, so your father probab

I don't know much about the American medical system, but in Canada, once you get into palliative care, you basically get put on narcotics, so your father probably would have been okay. For most people, this works well (there are some kinds of pain originating from the CNS that as far as I know have no good treatments). The situation for out-patients is not that great though. All the strong analgesics make you loopy. This is fine if you are in a hospital, and under supervision, but it's dangerous if you're not in a hospital. Unfortunately, the science just isn't there yet. Treating pain is like treating cancer: there are so many different forms of pain, different locations, different "causes", etc.