Ms. Bernhofer is the Pain Management/Education Coordinator for the inpatient Medicine and Digestive Disease Institutes at the Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH. She is board certified (American Nurses Credentialing Center) in Pain Management Nursing and has a strong desire to see to the optimization of pain care for all hospitalized patients. She believes that one of the primary reasons for the ineffectual treatment of pain may be difficulty in applying ethical principles when making decisions for pain treatment. She advocates that adhering to an ethical framework for the treatment of patients with acute pain in the hospital may be the answer to better pain care satisfaction for patients. Ms. Bernhofer received her BSN from the University of Akron (OH) and is currently completing the BSN to PhD program at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing, Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland). She is currently a doctoral candidate in nursing with a program of research in pain management.