pain management course
pain management training
pain management fellowship
Website: http://painfellowship.org/
checklist for a physician before enrolling
Summary: With increase of life expectancy, more people are surviving at old age with different kinds of musculoskeletal pain. So, the demand of the specialty of pain management is growing very fast. Thus, many private & Govt hospitals &institutions have started pain management courses. But which one to choose?
Article:
Once treatment of pain was considered as a delicacy andpain management was not considered as an integral part of overall management of a disease. But lot of researches proved that non-relieved pain has many serious health hazards including death. Thus, treatment or management of pain was gradually accepted as part of treatment of the painful disease.
John Bonica is considered as father of pain management. He was an army anaesthetist. During second world war, he faced lots of injured patients where pain was very intense. He started doing nerve block for temporary relief of pain leaving behind the responsibility to other specialists to treat the main disease condition. Thus, he developed concept of multidisciplinary treatment of painful diseases, which is a very popular concept. Unfortunately, this concept didn’t work in most situation, simply because bringing different specialists like an orthopaedic doctor, a neurosurgeon, a psychiatrist, an anaesthetist together is a challenging job considering their ego and time.
Thus, pain management specialty started in the hands of anaesthetists in 1950s with the question mark, who will treat the main disease! With some exception, gradually single discipline pain clinic became popular which is run by a pain specialist who have working knowledge of all other related specialities. So, the responsibility of a pain specialist grew beyond interventions &nerve blocks to make diagnosis and cure of original painful disease conditions.
Thus, the need of proper pain management training programs with training of making a diagnosis was gradually growing. Initially pain physicians were attending one/few pain management workshop/s and calling themselves as pain specialist/physician. But, they didn’t have any knowledge of other specialities, and unable to make a proper diagnosis. So, the need of long term pain management courses, pain management training programs, pain management fellowships were realized. Many private and govt institutions/hospitals started various pain management courses, pain management training programs, pain management fellowships. With the availability of so many programs, it is becoming gradually difficult to choose from different courses.
Here, we shall suggest an interested physician to look at the following points. Even if all the following criteria are not fulfilled, at least 4 of the following criteria must be fulfilled to choose a course.
• Experience of institution:The institution must have a good track record with experience. A relatively new institute can be good, but only time can prove it. Till then, we must remember, that elder an institution, better will be its performance in majority situations.
• Feedback & review about course:Feedback of past participants should be counted. Number of vote is important here; high ranking with small number of votes have a high possibility of tampered review.
• Quality faculty:Faculty and course director must be well experience and should be assessed by its position held, number of publications, authorship of books or book chapters.
• Clinical exposer:Number of patients seen in the hospitals, number of interventions done. At least 120 new patients and 30 interventional procedures should be there.
• Course curriculum:Method of teaching is very important. Whether stresses are given on diagnosing the diseases or, interventions without a proper diagnosis as were done earlier, should also be counted.
• Infrastructure:Infrastructures available for conducting pain management fellowships or pain management courses, including all modern instruments for all kinds of interventional pain management procedures.
• Research facilities:Facilities of researches on pain management should be very important criteria for pain management fellowship programs.
• Affiliation & accreditation: Affiliation of monitoring agency, whether private or govt must be there.
Unfortunately, majority of the institutions do not meet most of the criteria. A physician must enquire about the available facilities before enrolling to any of the pain management courses or pain management fellowship programs.
Key words: pain management course, pain management training, pain management fellowship
checklist for a physician before enrolling
Summary: With increase of life expectancy, more people are surviving at old age with different kinds of musculoskeletal pain. So, the demand of the specialty of pain management is growing very fast. Thus, many private & Govt hospitals &institutions have started pain management courses. But which one to choose?
Article:
Once treatment of pain was considered as a delicacy andpain management was not considered as an integral part of overall management of a disease. But lot of researches proved that non-relieved pain has many serious health hazards including death. Thus, treatment or management of pain was gradually accepted as part of treatment of the painful disease.
John Bonica is considered as father of pain management. He was an army anaesthetist. During second world war, he faced lots of injured patients where pain was very intense. He started doing nerve block for temporary relief of pain leaving behind the responsibility to other specialists to treat the main disease condition. Thus, he developed concept of multidisciplinary treatment of painful diseases, which is a very popular concept. Unfortunately, this concept didn’t work in most situation, simply because bringing different specialists like an orthopaedic doctor, a neurosurgeon, a psychiatrist, an anaesthetist together is a challenging job considering their ego and time.
Thus, pain management specialty started in the hands of anaesthetists in 1950s with the question mark, who will treat the main disease! With some exception, gradually single discipline pain clinic became popular which is run by a pain specialist who have working knowledge of all other related specialities. So, the responsibility of a pain specialist grew beyond interventions &nerve blocks to make diagnosis and cure of original painful disease conditions.
Thus, the need of proper pain management training programs with training of making a diagnosis was gradually growing. Initially pain physicians were attending one/few pain management workshop/s and calling themselves as pain specialist/physician. But, they didn’t have any knowledge of other specialities, and unable to make a proper diagnosis. So, the need of long term pain management courses, pain management training programs, pain management fellowships were realized. Many private and govt institutions/hospitals started various pain management courses, pain management training programs, pain management fellowships. With the availability of so many programs, it is becoming gradually difficult to choose from different courses.
Here, we shall suggest an interested physician to look at the following points. Even if all the following criteria are not fulfilled, at least 4 of the following criteria must be fulfilled to choose a course.
• Experience of institution:The institution must have a good track record with experience. A relatively new institute can be good, but only time can prove it. Till then, we must remember, that elder an institution, better will be its performance in majority situations.
• Feedback & review about course:Feedback of past participants should be counted. Number of vote is important here; high ranking with small number of votes have a high possibility of tampered review.
• Quality faculty:Faculty and course director must be well experience and should be assessed by its position held, number of publications, authorship of books or book chapters.
• Clinical exposer:Number of patients seen in the hospitals, number of interventions done. At least 120 new patients and 30 interventional procedures should be there.
• Course curriculum:Method of teaching is very important. Whether stresses are given on diagnosing the diseases or, interventions without a proper diagnosis as were done earlier, should also be counted.
• Infrastructure:Infrastructures available for conducting pain management fellowships or pain management courses, including all modern instruments for all kinds of interventional pain management procedures.
• Research facilities:Facilities of researches on pain management should be very important criteria for pain management fellowship programs.
• Affiliation & accreditation: Affiliation of monitoring agency, whether private or govt must be there.
Unfortunately, majority of the institutions do not meet most of the criteria. A physician must enquire about the available facilities before enrolling to any of the pain management courses or pain management fellowship programs.
Key words: pain management course, pain management training, pain management fellowship