ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jeffrey S. Barkin, MD, DLFAPA, is a practicing psychiatrist in Portland and the former president of Maine Medical Association. He co-hosts “A Healthy Conversation” on WGAN.

This case is not simple. It is not clean. And it is not just about one doctor. Because pain is real. So is suffering. And so is the slow, invisible erosion of judgment when good intentions outpace good sense. Anyone who has treated chronic pain patients, especially in places where specialists are scarce and suffering is constant, knows the blur between courage and recklessness. You want to help. You have to help. But there is a line. And when that line is crossed, intentionally or blindly, people die.

This isn’t about vengeance. It isn’t about making an example of someone. It’s about drawing a boundary. Not a political one, or a courtroom one, but a moral one. What do we expect of our physicians? Where does the duty to relieve suffering end, and the obligation to protect life begin? These are not rhetorical questions. They are life-and-death decisions made thousands of times every day in clinics across the country.

Dr. Norris’ trial pulled back the curtain on what happens when those decisions are made without guardrails. It showed us what it looks like when oversight fails, when empathy goes unchecked, and when the drive to treat pain begins to eclipse every other responsibility. It also showed us something else: the cost of isolation.

Doctors often operate alone, understaffed, under-supported and overwhelmed. There is little room for collaboration, little margin for error, and almost no tolerance for failure. Many of these physicians feel abandoned by the very institutions meant to guide them. And in that vacuum, even the best of us can lose our way. But the answer is not to excuse misconduct. The answer is to understand how it happens and to build systems strong enough to prevent it. That means better education for doctors and patients. It means smarter oversight that focuses on prevention, not punishment. It means rethinking how we treat both pain and addiction, not as separate silos, but as overlapping realities.

Most of all, it means restoring trust. The opioid crisis didn’t just break bodies. It broke faith, between doctors and patients, between regulators and the public, between science and the people who need it most. Rebuilding that faith will take more than a sentence handed down in court. It will take humility. It will take listening. It will take acknowledging that we, as a profession and a country, got it wrong, and that we are still getting it wrong in too many places. But there is hope.

There are doctors today who are learning to treat pain more wisely, more collaboratively and more safely. There are patients who are speaking up about their needs, and about the risks they face when care is careless. There are lawmakers, educators and communities beginning to understand that the solution to suffering is not more medication, but more connection.

And there are lessons here. Pain demands compassion. But compassion without responsibility is not care. It is harm disguised as help. And that is the tragedy of this case, not just that lives were lost, but that a doctor may have believed, until the end, that she was saving them. The justice system has spoken. But the larger story is still being written, by every clinician who prescribes, by every patient who asks for relief, and by every institution that either supports or neglects them.

Let’s write a better next chapter, one where pain is treated seriously, addiction is treated humanely and responsibility is never an afterthought. Because pain is real. But so is accountability. So is healing. And so is the chance, still in front of us, to get this right.

Jeffrey S. Barkin MD, DLFAPA

President, Trusted Biotech Partners

Past President, Maine Medical Association

Co-Host, A Healthy Conversation with Steve Woods and Dr. Jeff Barkin

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