The Lyceum for Pain Education: Providing Accessible Education on Chronic Pain and Headaches to a Global Audience

Roxanne Bavarian,1,2 Tamunodiyepriye Gift Ngo,3 Michael E Schatman,4,5 Ronald J Kulich3,6 1Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA; 2Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Harvard School of Dental Medicine, Boston, MA, USA; 3Orofacial Pain Center, Tufts University School of Dental Medicine, Boston, MA, USA; 4Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative Care, & Pain Medicine, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA; 5Department of Population Health – Division of Medical Ethics, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA; 6Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine/Department of Psychiatry Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USACorrespondence: Michael E Schatman, Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative Care & Pain Medicine, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, 550 First Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, USA, Tel +1 425-647-4880, Email [email protected]

Predicting the Collapse of Pain Medicine Using the Economic Recession of 2008 as a Comparator: Lessons Remain Unlearned

Sayed E Wahezi,1 Corey W Hunter,2 Farshad M Ahadian,3 Charles E Argoff,4 Michael E Schatman5,6 1Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY, USA; 2Ainsworth Institute of Pain Management, New York, NY, USA; 3Department of Anesthesiology, Center for Pain and Palliative Medicine, University of California, San Diego Medical Center, San Diego, CA, USA; 4Department of Neurology, Albany Medical Center, Albany, NY, USA; 5Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative Care and Pain Medicine, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA; 6Department of Population Health – Division of Medical Ethics, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, USACorrespondence: Sayed E Wahezi, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Montefiore Medical Center, 1250 Waters Place, Tower #2 8th Floor, Bronx, NY, 10461, USA, Tel +1 718-920-7246, Fax +1 929-263-3950, Email [email protected]: The last decade has seen a boom in pain medicine, basic science and interventional pain management. Concomitantly, there is a need to educate trainees, young attendings, and seasoned attendings on these innovations. There has been a growth in the number of societies that represent pain medicine physicians, each with its own philosophy and guiding principles. The variety of thought within pain management, within the various groups that practice this field, and amongst the societies which protect those missions inherently creates divergence and isolation within these different communities. There is the enormous opportunity for our field to grow, but we need the voices of all different specialties and sub-specialties which practice pain medicine to collectively design the future of our emerging field. The explosion of revolutionary percutaneous surgeries, medications, psychotherapy, and research and development in our field has outpaced the ability of payers to fully embrace them. There is an increased number of pain practitioners using novel therapies, postgraduate training programs do not adequately train users in these techniques thereby creating a potential for sub-optimal outcomes. In part, this is a reason why payers for many of our more novel treatments have decreased patient access or eliminated remuneration for some of them. We believe that society-based collaborative regulation of education, research, and treatment guidelines is needed to improve visibility for payers and end users who provide these treatments. Furthermore, postgraduate chronic pain fellowship education has been deemed by many to be insufficient to educate on all of the necessary requirements needed for the independent practice of pain medicine, especially the consummation of newer technologies. Here, we draw comparison with this tenuous stage in pain management history with the last United States recession to remind us of how poor institutional regulation and neglect for long-term growth hampers a community.Keywords: fellowship, training, futur

Does a research group increase impact on the scientific community or general public discussion? Alternative metric-based evaluation

In this study, we investigated the impact of scientific publications of the Italian SIMPAR (Study In Multidisciplinary PAin Research) group by using altmetrics, defined as nontraditional metrics constituting an alternative to more traditional citation-impact metrics, such as impact factor and H-index. By correlating traditional and alternative metrics, we attempted to verify whether publications by the SIMPAR group collectively had more impact than those performed by its individual members, either in solo publications or in publications coauthored by non-SIMPAR group investigators (which for the purpose of this study we will refer to as “individual publications”). For all the 12 members of the group analyzed (pain therapists, biologists, and pharmacologists), we created Open Researcher and Contributor ID and Impact Story accounts, and synchronized these data. Manually, we calculated the level metrics for each article by dividing the data obtained from the research community by those obtained from the public community. We analyzed 759 articles, 18 of which were published by the SIMPAR group. Altmetrics demonstrated that SIMPAR group publications were more likely to be saved (77.8% vs 45.9%), discussed (61.1% vs 1.1%, P<0.0001), and publicly viewed (11.1% vs 1.3%, P=0.05) than individual publications. These results support the importance of multidisciplinary research groups in the impact of scientific literature; the interaction and synergy among the research participants allowed the obtainment of high impact-literature in the field of personalized pain medicine. Finally, our findings demonstrate the potential of altmetrics in estimating the value of the research products of a group

Treatment Efficacy, Clinical Utility, and Cost-Effectiveness of Multidisciplinary Biopsychosocial Rehabilitation Treatments for Persistent Low Back Pain: A Systematic Review

Study Design: Systematic review. Objectives: To review the current literature on the treatment efficacy, clinical utility, and cost-effectiveness of multidisciplinary biopsychosocial rehabilitation (MBR) for patients suffering from persistent (nonspecific) lower back pain (LBP) in relation to pain intensity, disability, health-related quality of life, and work ability/sick leave. Methods: We carried out a systematic search of Web of Science, Cochrane Library, PubMed Central, EMBASE, and PsycINFO for English- and German-language literature published between January 2010 and July 2017. Study selection consisted of exclusion and inclusion phases. After screening for duplication, studies were excluded on the basis of criteria covering study design, number of participants, language of publication, and provision of information about the intervention. All the remaining articles dealing with the efficacy, utility, or cost-effectiveness of intensive (more than 25 hours per week) MBR encompassing at least 3 health domains and cognitive behavioral therapy–based psychological education were included. Results: The search retrieved 1199 publications of which 1116 were duplicates or met the exclusion criteria. Seventy of the remaining 83 articles did not meet the inclusion criteria; thus 13 studies were reviewed. All studies reporting changes in pain intensity or disability over 12 months after MBR reported moderate effect sizes and/or p-values for both outcomes. The effects on health-related quality of life were mixed, but MBR substantially reduced costs. Overall MBR produced an enduring improvement in work ability despite controversy and variable results. Conclusions: MBR is an effective treatment for nonspecific LBP, but there is room for improvement in cost-effectiveness and impact on sick leave, where the evidence was less compelling

A Systematic Guideline by the ASPN Workgroup on the Evidence, Education, and Treatment Algorithm for Painful Diabetic Neuropathy: SWEET

Dawood Sayed,1 Timothy Ray Deer,2 Jonathan M Hagedorn,3 Asim Sayed,4 Ryan S D’Souza,3 Christopher M Lam,1 Nasir Khatri,5 Zohra Hussaini,1 Scott G Pritzlaff,6 Newaj Mohammad Abdullah,7 Vinicius Tieppo Francio,1 Steven Michael Falowski,8 Yussr M Ibrahim,9 Mark N Malinowski,10 Ryan R Budwany,2 Natalie Holmes Strand,11 Kamil M Sochacki,12 Anuj Shah,13 Tyler M Dunn,11 Morad Nasseri,14 David W Lee,15 Leonardo Kapural,16 Marshall David Bedder,17,18 Erika A Petersen,19 Kasra Amirdelfan,20 Michael E Schatman,21,22 Jay Samuel Grider23 1Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, The University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS, USA; 2Pain Services, Spine and Nerve Center of the Virginias, Charleston, WV, USA; 3Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA; 4Podiatry/Surgery, Susan B. Allen Memorial Hospital, El Dorado, KS, USA; 5Interventional Pain Medicine, Novant Spine Specialists, Charlotte, NC, USA; 6Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, University of California, Davis, Sacramento, CA, USA; 7Department of Anesthesiology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA; 8Neurosurgery, Neurosurgical Associates of Lancaster, Lancaster, PA, USA; 9Pain Medicine, Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center, Bangor, ME, USA; 10OhioHealth Neurological Physicians, OhioHealth, Columbus, OH, USA; 11Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Phoenix, AZ, USA; 12Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson, New Brunswick, NJ, USA; 13Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Detroit Medical Center, Detroit, MI, USA; 14Interventional Pain Medicine / Neurology, Boomerang Healthcare, Walnut Creek, CA, USA; 15Pain Management Specialist, Fullerton Orthopedic, Fullerton, CA, USA; 16Carolinas Pain Institute, Winston Salem, NC, USA; 17Chief of Pain Medicine Service, Augusta VAMC, Augusta, GA, USA; 18Associate Professor and Director, Addiction Medicine Fellowship Program, Department Psychiatry and Health Behavior, Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University, Augusta, GA, USA; 19Department of Neurosurgery, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR, USA; 20Director of Clinical Research, Boomerang Healthcare, Walnut Creek, CA, USA; 21Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative Care & Pain Medicine, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA; 22Department of Population Health – Division of Medical Ethics, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA; 23Anesthesiology, Division of Pain Medicine, University of Kentucky College of Medicine, Lexington, KY, USACorrespondence: Dawood Sayed, Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, the University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS, USA, Tel +1 785-550-5800, Email [email protected]: Painful diabetic neuropathy (PDN) is a leading cause of pain and disability globally with a lack of consensus on the appropriate treatment of those suffering from this condition. Recent advancements in both pharmacotherapy and interventional approaches have broadened the treatment options for PDN. There exists a need for a comprehensive guideline for the safe and effective treatment of patients suffering from PDN.Objective: The SWEET Guideline was developed to provide clinicians with the most comprehensive guideline for the safe and appropriate treatment of patients suffering from PDN.Methods: The American Society of Pain and Neuroscience (ASPN) identified an educational need for a comprehensive clinical guideline to provide evidence-based recommendations for PDN. A multidisciplinary group of international experts developed the SWEET guideline. The world literature in English was searched using Medline, EMBASE, Cochrane CENTRAL, BioMed Central, Web of Science, Google Scholar, PubMed, Current Contents Connect, Meeting Abstracts, and Scopus to identify and compile the evidence for diabetic neuropathy pain treatments (per section as listed in the manuscript) for the treatment of pain. Manuscripts from 2000-present were included in the search process.Results: After a comprehensive review and analysis of the available evidence, the ASPN SWEET guideline was able to rate the literature and provide therapy grades for most available treatments for PDN utilizing the United States Preventive Services Task Force criteria.Conclusion: The ASPN SWEET Guideline represents the most comprehensive review of the available treatments for PDN and their appropriate and safe utilization.Keywords: diabetes, painful diabetic neuropathy, neuropathy, spinal cord stimulation, chronic pain, diabetic neuropath

A glimmer of hope in American pain medicine?

Michael E Schatman US Pain Foundation, Bellevue, WA,&nbsp;USAOver the past 8 years, I have acquired a degree of notoriety relating to my scathing&nbsp;criticism of the badly broken American pain care system. In the three-part series on&nbsp;the crisis in pain care in the United States that I coauthored with Dr Jim Giordano in 2008,1-3 we performed an ethical analysis of our system, examining the need for&nbsp;a paradigmatic revision if we were to adequately treat a disease as complex as is&nbsp;chronic pain, given the system&#39;s economic realities. Due to the insurance and hospital&nbsp;industries&#39; adherence to the &quot;business ethic&quot; of cost-containment and profitability (as&nbsp;opposed to patient well-being), we were witnessing the profound undertreatment of&nbsp;pain in conjunction with a growing reliance upon technophilism, ie, an emphasis on&nbsp;technologically driven pain care sorely lacking a reasonable evidence-basis. Early in the&nbsp;following decade, Dr Alan Lebovits and I guest-edited a special series in Pain Medicine&nbsp;on the unfortunate devolution of the &quot;profession&quot; of pain medicine to the &quot;business&quot;&nbsp;of pain medicine.4&nbsp

The American chronic pain crisis and the media: about time to get it right?

Michael E SchatmanUS Pain Foundation, Bellevue, Washington/Middletown, Connecticut, USAOn November 23, 2015, the venerable Wall Street Journal published an article entitled &quot;New Help for Back Pain&quot;.1 In this article, the author wrote of &quot;an innovative approach to help patients cope and heal called functional restoration&quot;, suggesting that it helps avoid costly diagnostic tests, surgery and other expensive treatments, and the risks of problems potentially associated with opioid analgesics. While the author&rsquo;s claims regarding interdisciplinary chronic pain management&rsquo;s potential benefits are accurate, as is so often the case, the media&rsquo;s inability to comprehend the &quot;big picture&quot; of the American crisis in pain medicine has resulted in yet another much-read yet highly biased and misinformative article that ultimately serves to exacerbate the difficulties with which our patients, and the system that they attempt to navigate, are faced