I have heard of that sort of thing as well. It seems to be a sort of a wink and a nudge situation, where you up their painkiller dose and say, gee, that’s a lot

I have heard of that sort of thing as well. It seems to be a sort of a wink and a nudge situation, where you up their painkiller dose and say, gee, that’s a lot of drugs, I sure hope it doesn’t have any bad effect on them, wink wink nudge nudge! And then: oh no, they died, how completely unforeseen! The facade of what I said is maintained, but the reality is more complex, as usual. This strange denial means things can get difficult in unusual circumstances, such as when your patient is making the national news. It’s hard to wink and nudge when not everyone is playing along.