A Single Point of Access for frontline practitioners
PAINWeekEnd Atlanta 2019 | Saturday 4/6/19 to 4/7/19
This is a 2-day meeting and will provide 12 CE/CME credits.
Practicing Healthcare Professionals: $199
In order to maintain the clinical nature of the conference, nonclinicians—including, but not limited to, office managers, billing specialists, receptionists, and administrative staff; guests, spouses, friends, and/or family members—may not attend PAINWeekEnd.
Unfortunately, we do not have discounts available on hotel rooms. Please contact the hotel directly should you require accommodations.
Sheraton Atlanta Downtown
165 Courtland Street NE
Atlanta, GA 30303
Get Directions using Google Maps
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Faculty and courses are subject to change. Please refer to the online agenda below for the most recent course descriptions.
To view the agenda below, click on the + sign next to the day of the conference to expand the conference agenda. Click on the + signs within the agenda to view the course description, UAN number, and AANP pharmacology credits.
*not certified for credit
Coffee will be served.
In order to successfully clinically manage pain, it is essential to begin with an understanding of the underlying mechanisms responsible for its generation. A skillful approach based upon better knowledge concerning the anatomical structures, pathways, and events that result in pain is more likely to lead to effective clinical management of pain. The discussion will include an overview of medication classes typically considered for pain and the pathways they affect.
Breakfast will be served.
Sponsored by Teva Pharmaceuticals.
There is much controversy around many aspects of pain treatment, and compelling arguments have focused on both sides of the fence regarding appropriate opioid use and prescribing, legalization of marijuana, and the safety of cox-2 inhibitors. In all 3 cases, there are issues associated with strong positions, although the evidence, when put into practice, is less black and white. For each topic, we will evaluate current literature and debate the clinical, legal, and ethical controversies surrounding recent developments in pain management. Attendees will get a better understanding as presenters debate evidence based application of the cdc guidelines in various clinical settings, evaluate clinical and ethical concerns regarding marijuana for medicinal or recreational use, and take a critical look at the literature and its application when using cox-2 inhibitors for treating pain.
According to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 29.1 million people (close to 10% of the US population) have diabetes and 30% to 50% of them eventually develop diabetic peripheral neuropathy, often with pain. Neuropathic pain due to diabetes is a commonly encountered chronic problem that has increased in frequency as the obese and diabetic population continues to increase. Many pharmacologic approaches including various algorithms are used to treat painful diabetic neuropathy; however, the effectiveness of many such medications is questionable. New evidence, including recent recommendations from the American Academy of Neurology, will be compared and contrasted with a prior systematic review and guideline, published in 2011. Agents and approaches with more recent evidence will be discussed in order to update knowledge of participants and assist them to better manage this disabling ailment.
Lunch will be served.
Sponsored by SCILEX.
There is a growing opioid epidemic and our role as providers and patient leaders in the community cannot be overstated. We need to recognize the growing burden of this problem as well as the role of all stakeholders in addressing the opioid epidemic in their communities. What is the prevalence, nationally and locally, for opioid use and prescribing? Where are the growing pockets and populations of opioid use? What is the Drug Enforcement Agency’s perspective from the front lines? In this course you learn how to apply knowledge of acute and chronic pain pathways and underlying mechanisms to clinical assessment and appropriate management of pain. Through the use of a 3D presentation, the differences between acute and chronic pain pathways and pain points and specific targets for opioids—appropriate and inappropriate—will be demonstrated. We will evaluate current clinical workflows for opioid prescribing, incorporating 2 best practice strategies to optimize safe and competent prescribing and minimize potential for abuse and diversion. Discussed will be working with patients to develop multimodal pain strategies; how to minimize the risk for diversion and abuse; and safe disposal of medications. After this course, you will be able to access resources and guidelines to recognize and treat patients with opioid use disorder and integrate into practice concepts from novel programs in the community to address opioid overdose and treat patients with opioid use disorder.
Presented by CME Outfitters and USF Health. Supported by an educational grant from Johnson & Johnson.
Click here to download the slides for this presentation.
Diagnostic testing is an integral component for the differential diagnosis. In routine clinical practice there has been a tendency for clinical examinations to become more cursory, largely influenced by increasing demands of time and patient expectations of technological advances. The end result may arguably lead to an overreliance on technology for basic clinical diagnosis. The purpose of this session is 2-fold. It is meant to provide a review and, for some, an introduction to basic structural and functional studies used for the diagnosis of pain related problems. Attention will also be given to the limitations of such studies and the importance of establishing clinical relevance to their findings. Factors that adversely affect clinical management potentially resulting in failed treatment will be discussed as well as best practices when utilizing such studies to help enhance clinical outcomes for treatment.
Pain is the number one reason why patients seek advice from their pharmacist or primary care provider. Patients very often seek to use a nonprescription analgesic to self-treat a painful complaint, yet often do not understand the exclusions to selftreatment or how to select the best analgesic. Participants in this presentation will learn what nonprescription analgesics are available, indications for use, appropriate dosing and duration of therapy, appropriateness of candidates, and how to monitor and educate patients about their nonprescription analgesic. At this presentation, participants will learn the mechanism of action, indications, adverse effects, and precautions of oral and topical nonprescription analgesics, along with patient counseling points when recommending a nonprescription analgesic.
Coffee will be served.
The field of pain management has undergone a circuitous adventure, much like a rabbit hole. As the economic, mental health, and medical consequences of prescribing opioid medications have mounted, the prevailing logic regarding the usefulness of prescribing opioids for chronic pain has shifted. The widespread dissemination of opiates and the lax safety measures placed on their storage has also led to an increase in nonmedical use. Given the high level of comorbidity between opioid use disorders and chronic pain, providers’ decisions about how to address treatment with patients who may have or who have been diagnosed with substance use disorders are often complex. The new CDC guidelines will require providers to assess for risk of overdose or development of a substance use disorder, and to be keenly aware of their patients’ pain levels and pain management strategies when working as part of a system where opioid medications may be prescribed. Participants will learn how patient and provider education programs and communication interventions may improve outcomes in pain management. Participants will also learn how to select candidates for opioid trials, assess for risk, and initiate opioid therapy, but only after exploring nonopioid and nonpharmacological strategies.
Breakfast will be served.
Sponsored by kaléo.
Considering the significant risks of surgery, initiatives to improve safety and outcomes would have a broad impact on public health. The number of surgical procedures worldwide has grown to over 232 million annually. Studies report that Americans undergo an average of 9.2 surgical procedures per lifetime: 3.4 inpatient, 2.6 outpatient, and 3.2 nonoperating room invasive procedures. The per capita rate of surgery continues to increase through age 75, peaking at 0.16 operations per person per year. Acute pain is a consequence of most surgical interventions. Certain procedures result in higher pain trajectories that, if not adequately addressed, can lead to poorer outcomes and increased costs. Clinical pathways are being developed to address improving outcomes in the most cost-efficient manners. This program examines new options on the horizon for the management of moderate to severe in-hospital acute pain management; the impact of scheduled vs not scheduled analgesics related to the management of in-hospital acute postoperative pain management; health economic and outcomes measures related to in-hospital acute moderate to severe postoperative pain; and enhanced recovery after surgery.
The CDC guidelines have caused controversy and spurred heated discussion. Produced with a paucity of evidence based medicine, they were never evaluated and iterated in the manner of more appropriate guidelines. In this course, we will examine the guidelines and their effect on practitioners—primary care physicians, pain specialists, etc—and chronic pain noncancer patients as well as some chronic cancer patients. Many functioning patients have had their opioid dosages diminished, either in concert with their physician or forcibly, without any say in the matter. This, along with a marked reduction in the amount of legal opioid medications that can be produced, has led to significant unintended consequences: practitioners are leaving the field; some refuse to even prescribe any opioids, mostly due to fear of overregulation; once functional patients are being abandoned by the medical field; patients are searching for something to return them to functionality, which can lead to overdose and death, particularly from heroin and illicit fentanyl. Indeed, the opioid crisis has now become the heroin and fentanyl crisis. During this presentation, solutions, and the changes necessary to bring them about, will be discussed.
Lunch will be served.
Sponsored by Daiichi Sankyo, Inc.
Effective pain management has been deemed a human right, but some chronic pain patients perceive that to mean they are entitled to opioid analgesics for prolonged pain control. In response to these expectations, providers may feel pressured to say “Yes” and continue prescribing opioids, thereby reinforcing the patient’s beliefs and reliance on medication. This has contributed to a dramatic rise in opioid analgesic misuse and deaths from prescription drug overdose. In fact, the CDC has identified opioid misuse as a “public health epidemic” and released new guidelines in March 2016. While a collaborative relationship is optimal for pain management, there may be times when a practitioner saying “No” is the best treatment. Many providers feel uncomfortable setting boundaries; however, boundary setting is important work because rights as a provider are also important. When reasonable limits are placed on a patient and the patient continues to step beyond those limits, it is imperative that providers maintain boundaries and be consistent in their message. Participants will learn about the gentle art of saying “No” and how to use a decision tree when making pain management decisions. Sample cases will be presented along with recommended treatment strategies.
The content of this presentation will encourage audience participation. The “rights” section—drug, patient, time—will enable participants to reflect on medical malpractice cases where these rights were initiated in less than adequate outcomes and fell below the standard of care. Additionally, attendees will come to understand the pharmacokinetic challenges often reflected in the treatment of the geriatric patient, and there will be discussion of the various opioid metabolism routes of substrate, inducer, and inhibitor pathways.>
During this course, we will go over the clinical symptomatology of migraine in a number of its various forms, as well as the pathophysiology of migraine. Also examined will be the acute as well as prophylactic treatment of migraine using evidence based criteria.
To accompany and enrich your experience at the PAINWeekEnd conference, be sure to attend one or more of the sponsored programs, which are scheduled during breakfast, lunch, and afternoon "Brain Food" time slots in the schedule. There is NO ADDITIONAL CHARGE to attend these program sessions!