PAIN - Outlet Clinical Guide
This website is dedicated to taking the PAIN out of pain management for medical providers; making it a painless endeavor, while helping our patients with chronic pain experience less PAIN; although many will never truly be painless. There are a number of websites that provide in-depth information on the various clinical aspects of pain and are intended for general improvement of our clinical knowledge. However, this website is intended to be a point of care clinical guide on how to approach the patient with chronic pain.
Relief versus Function
- While various treatments may provide some degree of relief, they often come at the cost of sacrificing a certain amount of functionality. This is often the case with opioid-containing analgesic regimens.
- It is important to determine the extent to which the patient is willing to sacrifice functionality. Of course, this is where negotiation ensues between the patient and the treating provider.
- The primary goal of pain management is to return the patient to a previous or a reasonable level of functionality, in light of minimizing adverse effects and outcomes.
- A Bio-Psycho-Social Interactive (BPSi) clinical mental model is essential in addressing, in a holistic fashion, the patient afflicted with chronic pain.
Webmaster Info:
- Walter J. Clark, Jr., MD, MSHCM, FASAM - Board Certified, Internal Medicine & Addiction Medicine