As an ex nurse who has suffered chronic pain for the past eight months due to chronic pancreatitis,which I’ve just had diagnosed, I think I’ve just realised that absolutely no one,with no matter how much training or experience, can tell or even begin to imagine how much pain another person is in. I remember being ‘conditioned ‘ to think “ you’re so many days post op, you can’t possibly need analgesia that strong”, and by the same token no matter how much training in psychiatry someone has, they can’t tell what someone else is thinking or what is going on in their head. If, by some miracle I ever went back to work, I would hope that this knowledge would make me a better, more understanding nurse.