Starting intravenous morphine in the postanesthesia care unit yielded better postoperative analgesia.

The administration of morphine intravenously in the Postanesthesia Care Unit (PACU) was practiced in many parts of the world, but not routinely done in Thailand. This prospective randomized controlled trial was performed to reassure Thai personnel that this practice was safe, to find the optimum dose of morphine for administration in the PACU, and to find the pain level at which patients needed no more analgesics. Eighty gynecological patients, ASA class I or II, were randomly allocated into two groups.