PAINS Report by Dr. Jason Schwalb
In 2011, at the request of the National Institutes of Health, the Institute of Medicine released its report on “Relieving Pain in America”, click here for the report. The panel that developed this report represented a broad spectrum of experts in pain, including Ken Follett, the Chair of Neurosurgery at the University of Nebraska, as well as patient advocates. This report focused on the incredible epidemiology and economic consequences of pain in the US, as well as impediments to effective pain care, including lack of education of patients and treating clinicians, legal and economic barriers and gaps in knowledge of best practices, even in the best of hands…