Giving Chronic Pain a Medical Platform of Its Own

Tara Parker Pope
New York Times
July 18, 2011

“Most people with chronic pain are still being treated as if pain is a symptom of an underlying problem,” said Melanie Thernstrom, a chronic pain sufferer from Vancouver, Wash., who wrote “The Pain Chronicles: Cures, Myths, Mysteries, Prayers, Diaries, Brain Scans, Healing and the Science of Suffering” and was a patient representative on the committee.

“If the doctor can’t figure out what the underlying problem is,” she went on, “then the pain is not treated, it’s dismissed and the patient falls down the rabbit hole.”

Links:

Pain is REAL: The Meaning of Pain and Suffering, Melanie Thernstrom, presentation during bioethics symposium April 26, 2011

What's Next? The IOM Report on Pain, Myra Christopher, The Bioethics Channel

Relieving Pain in America: A Blueprint for Transforming Prevention, Care, Education, and Research, Institute of Medicine