Several important developments occurred in 2012-2013 for the Western Pain Program. In September, the Pain Management Program at St. Joseph’s Health Care London moved to a 3,326 sq. ft. state-of-the-art facility on the third floor of the hospital. This includes procedure rooms, physician offices and a fluoroscopy suite dedicated to pain management. The fluoroscopy suite allows us to offer a number of fluoroscopically-guided procedures for intractable pain such as nerve root blocks, lumbar and cervical epidural steroid injections, and radiofrequency facet denervation for chronic back and neck pain.
St. Joseph’s Outpatient Pain Clinic receives over 5,000 patient visits per year and this number is growing. Another exciting event in 2012 was the launch of two websites: the Western Pain Medicine website and St. Joseph’s Pain Management Program website. The Western Pain Medicine website is our virtual voice in research and education, describing the faculty, research, resources, and our contributions to education including upcoming speaking events and conferences. There is also an extensive history of the Earl Russell Research Chair in Pain Management and Research.
A new triage system to streamline our referrals was developed in 2013. It was implemented with direction from Dr. Kate Ower and RN Cathy Rohfritsch. This new triage system has been very effective in reducing the average wait time for new patients to 3-6 months depending on the service required. Urgent consults, specifically complex Regional Pain Syndrome, can be seen within 2-3 weeks.
The pain program continues to be very active in pain education at the undergraduate level. This includes a well-attended Year 4 elective on Pain Medicine. This is a multi-disciplinary course provided by anesthesiologists, neurologists, a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a palliative care specialist, and a pharmacist. This past year, the ICE hours were increased by the Schulich School of Medicine Curriculum Committee from 12 to 18 hours, with a future hope of increasing this to 36 hours annually.
Anesthesia residents rotate through the Pain Clinic for at least one block (more if requested). We also offer Physical Medicine residents a three-month rotation as part of their training requirement. Pain Management continues to be a popular elective with Family Medicine, and Psychiatry residents.
The Royal College Pain Medicine Subspecialty Program is a two year multidisciplinary training program, which includes Psychiatry, Pediatrics, Neurology, Physical Medicine, Rehabilitation, and Rheumatology. The curriculum received official approval from the Royal College in June, 2013. Program Director, Dr. Geoff Bellingham was responsible for preparing the Western University application for accreditation.
Interdisciplinary Pain Rounds (MAINPORT –accredited) are presented on the fourth Thursday of each month and feature invited speakers with national and international reputations. A list of seminar topics and lectures follows on the next page. Announcements are posted regularly on www.westernpain.ca, as well as in the weekly electronic newsletter for the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry.
