Pain medicine: taking it to the streets
FPMANZCA – QUO VADIS?
M Cohen
St Vincent’s Campus, Sydney, NSW
In December 2005, Pain Medicine was recognised as a medical specialty in Australia. This official mark of maturity not only justifies the journey which pain physicians have undertaken but also generates at least three sets of implications for the future of the Faculty and the discipline.
Firstly, for our Patients – current and future – this development helps to legitimise their plight and to inform them that there is a body of expertise which can be marshalled to improve the quality of their lives, without stigma, shame or avoidable suffering. Patients can feel justified in asserting their rights to pain relief and, especially in developed countries such as Australia and New Zealand, in asking questions of institutions and jurisdictions when that is not forthcoming.
The second set applies to Practitioners – not only pain physicians but all those who are studying and practising modern medicine. The necessity of knowing about “pain”, the challenge of teaching about it and the desirability of achieving competency in its management can no longer be ignored by medical schools, post-graduate medical committees and (other) medical colleges.
The third set of implications refers to Public Policy. The arguments through which Pain Medicine has achieved recognition are on the public record and can be used – by Patients and Practitioners – to advocate for provision of pain services where there are none, to provide training opportunities where there are painfully few and overall to promote a philosophy that inadequate attention to clinical pain is incompatible with modern society.
The Faculty of Pain Medicine has been unique in its position and its program. As a now mature pioneer, it can set the agenda for addressing these new frontiers.
Time of Presentation
Saturday 13 May 2006 - 1330-1500
