Pain Research, Education & Policy

2013 Sackler Lecture: Dr. Scott Fishman

by Pamela Katz Ressler, MS, RN, HN-BC, adjunct faculty, Pain Research, Education and Policy (PREP), Tufts University School of Medicine

The Pain Research, Education and Policy Program (PREP) is honored to present the Annual Sackler Lecture with guest speaker, Scott M. Fishman, MD, chief, Division of Pain Medicine and Professor of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine (School of Medicine, University of California-Davis), on Thursday, January 31, 4:00-5:00 PM in the Wolff Auditorium at Tufts Medical Center (800 Washington St, Boston).

Dr. Fishman, a world-renowned authority on pain management, will lecture on the subject of interprofessional and competency-based education for clinicians managing pain. Chronic, or persistent pain, is not only a personal health issue, but a public health and economic challenge for our country.  It is estimated that chronic pain costs the United States economy over $635 billion annually due to medical care and lost productivity. Yet, we are not adequately addressing this societal burden.  As pain management has evolved over the past decades, it has become apparent that a multi-modal and interprofessional approach to pain is necessary.  However, interprofessional pain management is often underutilized for many factors, one being a paucity of interdisciplinary educational opportunities for clinicians. Training our health care professionals to manage pain in an interprofessional model will allow for our health care system to effectively care for the increasing numbers of individuals suffering from chronic or persistent pain. The need for increased interprofessional training in pain management was recently highlighted in the Institute of Medicine’s 2011 report:  Relieving Pain in America: A Blueprint for Transforming Prevention, Care, Education, and Research. In addition to his clinical work at UC-Davis, Dr. Fishman serves as a co-principal investigator of the Interprofessional Pain Management Competencies Working Group of the Mayday Fund.

The Pain Research Education and Policy Program invites students, alumni, health care professionals, clinical staff and faculty,  health communicators, public health advocates, and others to join us for Dr. Fishman’s informative and engaging lecture, immediately followed by an interprofessional panel discussion.

For more information about the event, click here

Add comment January 21st, 2013

Wounded Warriors: Pain Management in the Military

by Pamela Katz Ressler, RN, BSN, HN-BC, MS-PREP candidate, PREP-AIRED blog moderator and administrator, Tufts University School of Medicine 

Please join the Pain Research Education and Policy Program’s (PREP) faculty, students and alumni for the 2011 Sackler Lecture on Thursday, April 21 at 4 PM in the Tufts Medical Center’s Wolff Auditorium.   The PREP program is honored to host  Dr. Rollin (Mac) Gallagher, MD, MPH  for this year’s lecture.  Dr. Gallagher, a prominent expert in the field of pain management, will address the complex pain issues confronting the military  in today’s wars and how the VA Health System is managing these from acute injury through rehabilitation.  His lecture is entitled: “The Veterans Administration Department of Defense Systems Redesign: Pain Management for Wounded Warriors from Injury to Recovery”. 

Dr. Gallagher currently serves as Director of Pain Management, Philadelphia Veteran Affairs Medical Center.  He is also Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Anesthesiology and Critical Care and Director for Pain Policy Research and Primary Care, Penn Pain Medicine Center, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.  He is Editor-in-Chief of Pain Medicine, the official journal of the American Academy of Pain Medicine, that he has also served as president. He currently serves on the National Pain Management Strategy Coordinating Committee for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

If you cannot join us in person for Dr. Gallagher’s lecture, we will have a link to his recorded lecture posted here next week.

Add comment April 19th, 2011