The opioid crisis is now a well-recognized epidemic and a serious public health crisis. We are far too familiar with the staggering statistics that are publicized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – on average, 130 Americans die every day from opioid overdose. However, in our own practices, we recognize that there is an additional predicament: the pain crisis. In 2011, the National Academy of Medicine (then, known as the Institute of Medicine) reported that over 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain. More recently, the CDC released population-based estimates that chronic pain among U.S. adults ranges from 11% to 40%. With these challenges, pain medicine physicians have their hands full.
While those of us in the field understand that pain medicine is a growing medical subspecialty, its foundations are in anesthesiology, neurology, physical medicine and rehabilitation, and psychiatry. The broader public is likely less aware of...
