Opportunity Area 2: Education of Health Care Professionals

Increased awareness of, and knowledge about, these pain conditions and their coexistence would greatly improve the quality of care given to sufferers.  It would also result in substantial cost savings to the government, private sector health insurance plans and the afflicted by reducing duplicative visits, ineffective and/or harmful treatments, and avoidable complications. 

The federal government should launch an aggressive multi-year campaign to educate physicians, particularly those working in primary care settings, and other health care professionals.

Using the latest scientific information on the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of these disorders, the federal government should launch an aggressive multi-year campaign to educate physicians, particularly those working in primary care settings, and other health care professionals.  This campaign should include the development of continuing medical education courses for professionals in practice and curricula for medical schools and other health care training programs.  Courses/curricula should emphasize learning objectives that will reduce gender-based, social, cultural, linguistic, literacy, geographic, communication and other barriers to effective care.  Overcoming bias should be a core part of medical, nursing and allied health curricula, as well as a component of health professionals’ continuing medical education.

Section 4307 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the major health care reform legislation signed into law by the President in March, authorizes the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to fund an effort to educate and train health professionals in pain care.  Funding for this initiative should be conditioned on the inclusion of education and training for women’s chronic pain conditions as outlined above.  Equity demands no less.

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