The Importance of Medical Education in the Changing Field of Pain Medicine

SUMMARY 

Suffering chronic pain is a global epidemic that requires a closer look on how we are educating trainees to become more effective in pain management. The vast majority of medical professionals will encounter treatment of pain throughout their career. Our current system for educating these medical professionals is flawed in a number of ways. Improving pain education will narrow the gap between over and under treatment of acute and chronic pain. Reviews have demonstrated dissatisfaction among practitioners throughout the world on how pain education is currently conducted. Changing the educational process will require support from several areas: medical educators, clinicians, policymakers, administrators and several other organizations

KEYWORDS:

• cancer pain
• chronic pain
• curriculum
• integrated course
• medical education
• pain assessment
• pain education
• pain treatment
• teaching
• training programs

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending or royalties.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.