Pain is one of the commonest complaints that brings the patients to the doctors and hospitals. This pain can be acute headache, back pain, fracture-related pain, dental pain, postoperative pain, labour pain, cancer pain, nerve pain or any other type of chronic pain. Untreated long duration pain also known as chronic pain is a significant health burden. Similarly, a poorly managed postoperative pain can lead to delayed discharge, poor patient satisfaction and can even transition to chronic postsurgical pain. Hence, it is essential to be aware of the consequences of untreated pain and train budding doctors on the importance of recognition, assessment and treatment of pain which not only is a “symptom in acute stage” but also a “disease” when it is in chronic form.
News about “Essential Pain Management” (EPM) is a globally recognized and simplified format of teaching and training the medical students, interns, and doctors in a standardized and protocolized manner known as “RAT system”. ‘R’ stands for ‘Recognize’ (pain), ‘A’ stands for ‘Assess’ and ‘T’ stands for Treatment of pain. This “RAT approach” is the cornerstone of EPM. This is similar to ABC (Airway Breathing Circulation) of Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) and Primary Secondary survey approach of Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) course.
The EPM course was conducted in the department of Anesthesia, KIMS by Prof. Dr Sailesh Mishra, a renowned Senior Pain Medicine Consultant from the UK and Dr. Rajendra Sahoo, Pain Medicine Consultant from KIMS hospital. They were supported by Prof. Dr. Amrita Panda, Prof. Dr. Ganesh Satapthy, Dr. Laxman Senapati and Dr. Anjali Kumari from the department of Anesthesia and other faculties. A total of 33 postgraduate anesthesia doctors participated in this 3-hour long interactive workshop which included powerpoint presentation, group discussions, case scenarios, pre- and post-test at the end of the workshop.
Using “RAT Model” and various case scenarios, Prof. Mishra enlightened the PG trainee doctors not only on pharmacological aspects but also on the non-pharmacological aspects of pain management. He also emphasized the importance of recognition and assessment of “total pain” meaning looking into the “physical, emotional, psychosocial and spiritual components of pain assessment”.
The session ended with significant improvement in the knowledge and understanding in the assessment and management of pain among trainees as reflected in the post-workshop test.
