While I agree doctors have contributed greatly to the pain management problem, and know there are people who live every day in some serious pain, I think people have an unrealistic expectation of living completely pain-free, too.
The medical community needs to find a happy medium and we to focus on alternatives that do not start off with the most powerful opiates like oxycontin. I can’t begin to tell you how much tragedy I have seen in two decades of law enforcement that started with over-prescribing pain meds. I have interviewed an honor student who got hooked on oxy for a back injury in college who started robbing drug stores - never had been arrested before this. Same kind of story with a mother of 3 kids who was injured in car accident. All of them will tell you they wish they had never taken the prescribed meds because it ruined their life.
Oxycontin has done far more damage than good and nobody will ever convince me differently. The only thing after oxy is heroin and for many oxy seems just as addictive. In my younger days they started you off on the lowest tier narcotic and worked up from there if you really needed it - now they hand out the most powerful stuff like candy.