Physicians-in-training learned about an important aspect of patient care — pain management — at a symposium held recently at the Yale School of Medicine.
In recent years, pain has been designated as one of the vital signs indicating a patient’s well-being by the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, and pain management is being widely accepted as a basic human right. Yet only 3% of the nation’s medical schools, including Yale, currently have a separate course in pain management.
As a first step in its efforts to include separate training in pain management as part of its curriculum, the School of Medicine recently hosted the inaugural Yale Multidisciplinary Pain Management Symposium. The event was organized by student Ninani Kombo under the guidance of faculty adviser Dr. Nalini Vadivelu, associate professor of anesthesiology, with support from the medical school’s Offices of Education and of Student Affairs, as well as the Graduate Professional Student Senate.
The symposium featured presentations on “Pain Pathways,” “Clinical Perspectives in Pain Management,” “Interventional Pain Management,” “Psychology and Pain Management” and “Legal Considerations of Pain Management.” The speakers included Vadivelu, Dr. Sam Chung and Dr. Raymond Sinatra of the Department of Anesthesiology; Dr. Michele Johnson of the Department of Interventional Radiology; Layne Goble, a psychologist at the West Haven Veterans Hospital; and Robert Burt, the Alexander M. Bickel Professor of Law at Yale Law School.
Two physicians also brought in patients so the students could talk with them and learn more about their personal experiences and challenges in living with chronic pain. One, who suffers from migraines, is a patient of Dr. Bahman Jabbari, professor of neurology; and the other, who has sickle cell anemia, is a patient of Dr. Thomas Duffy, professor of internal medicine and hematology.
Plans call for the symposium to continue as an annual event, and to be included within the neurology module of the second-year medical curriculum.
“This will continue to be a multidisciplinary pain symposium and in true Yale medical school tradition it will be organized by medical student volunteers,” says Vadivelu, who will continue to serve as faculty adviser for the initiative. “In the near future, the pain management curriculum may be expanded to include didactic case studies in pain management during the third and fourth years of medical school.
“This commitment,” she adds, “makes Yale School of Medicine one of the leaders among U.S. medical schools in formal pain management education.”
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