In the meantime, there is plenty we can do to address America’s pain epidemic. For too long the pharmaceutical industry has blurred our vision. It was just revealed in court filings that drug companies greatly underplayed the risks of opioids, while billions of dollars in marketing told people that pills were the only answer to their ailments.

There is a pressing need to increase funding for research into strategies that don’t just involve taking more drugs. Not every person who experiences acute pain goes on to develop chronic pain. We need to learn more about which interventions work to prevent this transformation.

Pain management should continue to be emphasized in medical education, but future doctors should be taught that pain is part of the story of the person who suffers from it, not just a separate physical phenomenon. And this education should incorporate ways to avoid prescribing opioids for chronic use.

Progress is already underway, as opioid prescription rates have been dropping since 2012 in the United States. But we still have a long way to go: The amount of opioids prescribed per person remains three times higher than it was 20 years ago.

Perhaps the most important tool physicians need to manage pain is empathy.

If chronic pain is an emotion as well as a sensation, then it is unlikely to be managed successfully without compassion. A 2017 study of doctors in Spain found that those whose patients rated them as empathetic were more effective at relieving their patients’ pain. Physical therapy that doesn’t just manipulate joints but also addresses the context pain comes alive in, encourages optimism and builds emotional resilience has been found to be more effective.

All this takes more time and attention than just prescribing a pill, and unfortunately our health system encourages doctors to see as many patients as possible as quickly as possible. We need to change how physicians are paid in order to give them the time to really talk with patients about their pain.

Back in medical school, I dislocated a disk in my back. In a snap, pain became my constant companion: It was the last thing I felt before I slept, the first feeling I had when I woke up. Unable to leave my dorm, I fell into a dark hole. I looked fine on the outside but was moth-eaten on the inside. I was adamant that I would avoid painkillers, especially opioids. I had no idea about the science that would emerge over the next few years. I felt that the pain was my body’s way of telling me that something was wrong, and I didn’t want to silence that voice with a temporary fix. What pulled me out after almost a year of agony was not just rigorous physical therapy that molded my spine back into shape but also the kindness of my friends, my family and my future wife.