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Scott M. Fishman, Heather M. Young, Driving Needed Change in Pain Education, Pain Medicine, Volume 17, Issue 10, October 2016, Pages 1790–1792, https://doi.org/10.1093/pm/pnw216
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Extract
Despite public health crises of prescription opioid abuse and inadequate treatment of pain, despite calls from blue-ribbon panels for better clinician training in pain and pain treatment, and despite earnest efforts by individual clinicians, professional societies, and educators, we have failed to provide high-quality pain management training for our nation’s health professionals [ 1 , 2 ]. The 2013 Institute of Medicine report on Pain in America stated, “Education is a central part of the necessary cultural transformation of the approach to pain,” and recommended improving the curriculum and education for health care professionals [ 1 ]. The 2016 National Pain Strategy from the US Department of Health and Human services concurred: “Most health care professions’ education programs devote little time to education and training about pain and pain care” [ 2 ].
Why have we not made more progress educating clinicians about pain when, ironically, pain is so prevalent in our population? I suggest two reasons for this failure—which, in turn, suggest two solutions.
