A useful summary of basic principles of pain medication prescription and management
“It’s a major health care problem,” said Raymond Hobbs, M.D., a Henry Ford Internal Medicine physician, and senior author of the clinical review published in the Journal of American Osteopathic Association. “We have physicians who have been well trained and have been practicing medicine a long time, but didn’t receive training in pain management.”
While acute pain results from an injury or is otherwise temporary and is resolved within three-to-six months, chronic pain persists for much longer. Chronic pain is often long-term and even lifelong. Chronic pain is also not always consistent with an injury, and for that reason can be a challenge to the doctor treating the patient.
“Pain is the most common reason a patient sees a physician. For most patients, the duration of the pain is short,” said Dr. Hobbs. “Unfortunately, for some patients the pain never goes away. It is these situations that present physicians with their greatest challenge since few are formally trained in effectively managing pain.”
The physician needs to look at the pain, but also how it affects the patient’s life, said Hobbs. Pain affects a patient in terms of psychological, social and cultural contexts.