In the January 2017 Newsletter, we are pleased to feature three articles from our Board.
President Mordecai Potash, MD, brings us his first presidential column discussing the trajectory of change now taking place in the field of pain management, from the regulatory environment to the use of medical marijuana to the assessment of risks and benefits in approaches to pain management.
It is my great pleasure to author my first column as President of the Southern Pain Society. In trying to find some inspiration for this column, I went through my New York Times’ collection of articles about chronic pain. I have long been a print and then digital subscriber to the Times, and now have amassed a collection its articles about chronic pain, pain management, and palliative care issues (with thanks to my father-in-law, who dutifully sends to me any article that escaped my eye).
Looking at these articles chronologically, it shows the great arc of change that our field has been through during our professional careers. From one practice standard and swinging to another – pain management as a field and as a professional practice has experienced marked changes and intense scrutiny that few fields of medicine have undergone over the last thirty years.
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Geralyn Datz, PhD, reflects on changes she has seen as she steps into a new role as Past President:
It is with excitement that I look forward to the new year of 2017. But also some sadness as I step away from the role as president. It has been a wonderful two years with the organization serving in this role. As I reflect back on my time served, I marvel at what has happened both within the society and within health care as a whole during my term.
One major development of growth during the time of my presidency was a much greater attention to mental health in the problem of chronic pain. As a pain psychologist, this is a movement I watch with great interest. I hope our membership noticed it as well, because it has been truly revolutionary. I have been practicing for dozen years, and in the last 2 years there has been a real excitement around pain psychology. There have been many more peer reviewed articles discussing the use of psychological self-care strategies, meditation, relaxation and the importance of educating the person with pain about what pain is and what chronic pain is not.
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Ann Quinlan-Caldwell, PhD, APN, brings us an article she has written discussing an innovative, team-based model to address complex issues in managing opiod substance use disorder.
During 2014, patients were admitted more frequently with diagnoses of soft tissue abscesses, epidural abscesses, and endocarditis. Two common denominators, among many of these patients, were a history of self-administering opioids intravenously and now needing intravenous (IV) antibiotics for prolonged periods of time. This combination posed a challenge for health care providers who believed that it was not prudent or safe to discharge patients with a port or peripherally inserted catheter (PICC) line for IV access when the patient was known to abuse opioids intravenously. Thus, the patients with these dual diagnoses -serious infections requiring IV antibiotics and substance use disorder- were admitted to the hospital for administration of IV antibiotics for six to twelve weeks.
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