The prevention from and alleviation of personal suffering by a patient is the physician's ultimate duty and the principal purpose of the professional practice of medicine. The suffering can be physical or mental. The ethical values of beneficence, non-maleficence, justice and equity, for many thoughtful physicians, become subordinate to the duty of making the patient better. For the infertile couple, prevention from or relief of suffering most obviously means the physician helping them to have a baby; this is not always possible, however, in which case other medical and personal strategies need to be explored if the suffering is to be lessened.

Painful menstruation. Can be primary, present in teenagers, generally in spasms around the start of the period; or it can be secondary, developing as a woman gets older, and then typically lasting more than a day or so into the period, with prolonged aching as well as spasms. Primary dysmenorrhea might have no medical importance beyond the suffering the pain causes, and typically gets better as a woman reaches her 20s; severe or persistent cases, however, warrant investigation. Secondary dysmenorrhea can signify, for example, endometriosis, fibroids, adenomyosis or peritubal adhesions.

A set of principles and values that govern behavior to accord with a notion of morality. See especially deontological ethics, teleological ethics and utilitarian ethics, and also see autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, justice and suffering. The ethics of assisted reproductive technology, collaborative reproduction, the doctor-patient relationship, informed consent and human embryo research are much debated.

Something you can't put a number on to give it its meaning or value, such as suffering. Opposite to quantitative.