The Multidisciplinary Pain Center: Organization and Personnel Functions for Pain Management

The pain center/clinic is in the stage of transition. It has come a long way since chronic pain was a nonexistent entity and patients with difficult pain problems did not receive well-deserved attention or were lost in the busy practices of vari­ ous specialty clinics. Thirty-five years ahead of the rest of us, John]. Bonica was the first physician who had a clear vision of a pain center's potential. Twenty years later, in response to loud public demands for relief of chronic pain, this idea was put into practice by a number of others on a somewhat larger scale. A team of specialists from various disciplines, trained in the management of chronic pain, now offer approaches ranging from simple outpatient care to inpatient hospital­ ization for comprehensive care including drug detoxification, behavior modi­ fication, and total rehabilitation of these patients. Hospitals have entered this arena with renewed enthusiasm. The pain center/clinic is now an established, ac­ cepted, and expanding method of providing care for chronic pain patients. The chapters in this book are based on examples of multidisciplinary projects that deal comprehensively with management of chronic pain. Aimed primarily at the pain center/clinic in the university hospital setting, this book ranges from his­ torical perspectives to current pain centers with their less orthodox methods of re­ lieving chronic pain to the future of algology as a specialty.