Pain BC Educates and Empowers ‘Pain Champion’ Pharmacists

Pain BC works to tackle three key issues: educating and empowering those in chronic pain, educating and empowering health care providers as they support patients with chronic pain, and facilitating change within the health care system so that chronic pain is adequately addressed.

Chronic pain does not get the recognition it deserves – but Pain BC is working to change that.

In a phone interview with the College, Pain BC Executive Director Maria Hudspith explained that chronic pain needs to come out from the shadows and start being acknowledged as a standalone cause.

“It’s the pain – not the condition – that impacts quality of life,” said Hudspith.

This fall, the non-profit organization is inviting pharmacists to its Chronic Pain 101 workshop. The goal of the workshop is to educate and empower Pain Champions who will then go and teach and support other health care providers in their community.

Pain BC developed a robust training model to address the many challenges of chronic pain. Outside of a lack of clinical knowledge for treating ongoing pain, there is also a palpable stigma for patients suffering from the invisible condition. The stigma can be especially problematic for patients with opioid prescriptions.

Hudspith explains that there are “attitudinal shifts” that need to happen, and that Pain BC is working hard to promote those shifts. Any time that a patient interacts with a health care provider is an opportunity to either help or hinder the stigma of chronic pain, and awareness is the first step. The Chronic Pain 101 workshop focuses specifically on effective communication skills for patients with chronic pain.

This is not the first time that the workshop has been offered. The first round of workshops were targeted towards physicians with much success, resulting in 57 Pain Champion physicians across BC. But Pain BC’s work was hardly done, as it was clear that the workshop had to be offered across the health care team. “Chronic pain requires a multi-disciplinary approach,” said Hudspith. Pharmacists are now the focus of the sessions this fall.

Pharmacists were a good choice as the next group to enroll based on their frequent interaction with patients living in pain. Pain BC is looking to offer the workshop to additional health care professionals such as physiotherapists and occupational therapists in the future.

Full-day workshops are taking place in the following communities: Nelson, Vancouver, Kelowna, Courtenay, Nanaimo, Kamloops and Maple Ridge. Physicians are also asking to attend where space is available in order to support collaborative health care practice.

The goal of the workshops is for Pain Champion pharmacists to support other health care professionals and chronic pain patients manage their condition.

While chronic pain sufferers may not look sick, they definitely feel the impacts and are not coping alone. “It’s a 1 in 5 condition,” said Hudspith.

For more information on Pain BC, visit www.painbc.ca and follow them on Twitter.