PAIN MEDICINE

Pain Medicine is the branch of medical practice dedicated to the diagnosis and treatment of pain. This is an area of medicine comprised of physicians from many disciplines. The American Academy of Pain Medicine(AAPM) has established a professional organization that brings together doctors from the varying disciplines to study pain medicine and share the most current information available. The AAPM provides Board testing and certification for qualified physicians from Anesthesiology, Physiatry, Psychiatry and Neurology. Physicians from other disciplines may challenge the Board if they meet the criteria for experience in pain medicine. Other physicians train in Pain Medicine Fellowships after finishing their general residency training. They too may sit for the Pain Medicine Boards.

Pain medicine practitioners evaluate each patient they see from a standpoint of the pain that is accompanying their underlying presenting condition. In evaluating each patient for the source of their pain, the Pain medicine specialist develops a stepwise treatment plan for bringing the pain under control. To accomplish this goal the pain medicine specialist must understand the sources and causes of acute and chronic pain. If initial, usually noninvasive, treatments do not bring the pain under control other techniques and disciplines, such as therapeutic blocks, psychosocial interventions, synergistic pharmacology, and palliative surgical interventions are instituted.