| Video
An epidemiologist looks at opioid therapy from the perspective of dose vs risk relationships, and comments on how communities can better harness local initiative and interest to combat overdose events.
| Article
A number of factors have coalesced to make pain and hormones a topical issue in pain management. One is that there are enough scientific studies to show us that pain itself has a dramatic effort on the hormone system. It will deplete hormones, for example. We also have learned that you can’t get...
| Article
Ketamine has been in clinical use for over 30 years. It has an excellent safety profile and profound analgesia. In the operating room, we really like it for specific populations. It’s related to the drug PCP and it does have some psychomimetic effects which is actually one of the reasons it’s not...
| Article
Pharmacogenetic testing is a new idea and a new science that has been attached to chronic pain prescribing, but it’s important to note that it may not be appropriate for every patient in your practice. As a prescriber, you have to be the one to make that differentiation.
Examples of patients you...
| Article
I think the important thing with methadone is safety first. Even though I’m a big methadone fan, I don’t think everyone is an ideal candidate for methadone therapy. I think we have to have a patient who’s very reliable, who will follow the plan of care, who will follow the directions, someone who...
| Article
I think that autonomy is very important when we’re looking at issues of adherence. In this country for the most part, people with pain are treated not particularly well, in my opinion, and as a bioethicist, I really struggle with that. Treatment agreements, also oftentimes called opioid contracts...
| Video
What would the world be like without opioids? Dr. Clark hypothesizes on the implications for patients with pain, and on what the characteristics of a “better” opioid might include.
| Article
The Iceberg Cometh
Dr. Passik is Director, Clinical Addiction Research and Education, Millenium Laboratories Clinical Education, San Diego, California. He has over 25 years’ experience in clinical practice as a pain psychologist specializing in addiction medicine. He is also a longtime member of...
| Article
Prescription drug monitoring programs are a bit of an enigma. Some practitioners are intimately aware of their existence and some are not. Some aren’t clear on what their role is in managing patients with pain and others are. In the years from the end of the 90s to the late first decade of the 2...
| Video
A discussion of the evolving medical/administrative/legal landscape that confronts prescribers of opioid medications. Attorney Furman offers additional advice on how clinicians can protect their practices.