Pain management

471 articles · Since 2014

Articles, page 5

The frustrating bureaucracy of getting a vaccine

October 26, 2025Oct 26, 2025

At age 81, I speak and write voluminously as a health care educator specializing in public health policy and practice for the treatment of pain and addiction. My wife and I are also careful about getting our periodic vaccinations for flu and COVID-19. A few days ago we responded to an invitation from our pharmacy to drop in for our shots on a walk-in basis. The process turned out to …

Conditions and diseases

Treating chronic pain in older adults

Claude E. Lett III, PA-C

October 23, 2025Oct 23, 2025

For decades, I treated patients with chronic pain. One truth became evident early: most older adults prescribed narcotics use them responsibly. My clinical acumen, shaped over more than forty years, intuitively knew this to be true. Still, I understood that…

Now the data confirms what practice long suggested. A national survey of adults aged 50 and older …

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Treating chronic pain in older adults

Conditions and diseases

Are doctors’ emotions fueling the opioid crisis?

Brian Lynch, MD

October 10, 2025Oct 10, 2025

It should be obvious by now, but somehow it is not: Physicians are not immune to the same emotions that govern human behavior everywhere else. We like to imagine that our white coats and years of training somehow grant us a protective immunity to fear, to shame, to the raw surge of emotion that can stop us in our tracks. The truth is, physicians and other medical professionals are just …

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Drugs and prescribing

The unfair war on buprenorphine

Brian Lynch, MD

September 23, 2025Sep 23, 2025

In my years as a physician on the front lines of addiction and pain medicine, I have never encountered a medication as transformative as buprenorphine (Suboxone). I have seen patients, broken by years of opioid addiction, have their lives change within an hour of their first dose, ready to reclaim a life they thought was lost. For these patients, buprenorphine is as essential as insulin is for a person with …

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The unfair war on buprenorphine

Conditions and diseases

How nature is inspiring the future of pain medicine

Varun Mangal

September 18, 2025Sep 18, 2025

Across the world's earliest civilizations, healers turned to nature as their pharmacy. Ancient systems like Ayurveda in India, Unani (Hikmat) medicine in the Middle East, and early European herbalism developed sophisticated therapeutic practices rooted in plants and natural compounds, many…

Across the world’s earliest civilizations, healers turned to nature as their pharmacy. Ancient systems like Ayurveda in India, Unani (Hikmat) medicine in the Middle East, and early European herbalism developed sophisticated therapeutic practices rooted in plants and natural compounds, many of which are still clinically relevant today.

Take turmeric, for example. Traditionally simmered in milk or prepared as a paste, it was used for its healing and anti-inflammatory properties. Today, biomedical …

Physician voices

How restrictive opioid policies worsen the crisis

Kayvan Haddadan, MD

September 3, 2025Sep 3, 20252

The ongoing opioid crisis, claiming over 70,000 lives annually in the U.S. according to the CDC's 2023 data, presents a perplexing scenario where regulatory bodies, in their attempt to curb misuse, have inadvertently intensified challenges for health care providers and…

The ongoing opioid crisis, claiming over 70,000 lives annually in the U.S. according to the CDC’s 2023 data, presents a perplexing scenario where regulatory bodies, in their attempt to curb misuse, have inadvertently intensified challenges for health care providers and patients. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued its 2016 guideline for prescribing opioids for chronic pain, with revisions in 2022 to address misapplications, yet these efforts have …

Physician voices

Why reforming medical boards is critical to saving patient care

Kayvan Haddadan, MD

August 27, 2025Aug 27, 2025

Imagine a dedicated physician, after years of rigorous training and countless lives saved, facing a medical board complaint over a minor issue—perhaps a clerical error in documentation or a subjective interpretation of a clinical decision. What should be a straightforward matter escalates into a career-threatening ordeal. State medical boards, endowed with significant authority, often wield it with little accountability. Armed with prosecutors who prioritize winning over truth, boards can …

Physician voices

How pain clinics contribute to societal safety

Olumuyiwa Bamgbade, MD

August 25, 2025Aug 25, 2025

In today's interconnected society, individual health shapes the well-being of communities. This is evident in the role of pain clinics, which have evolved beyond their traditional mandate of managing chronic pain. A recent peer-reviewed research publication in the SVOA Medical…

In today’s interconnected society, individual health shapes the well-being of communities. This is evident in the role of pain clinics, which have evolved beyond their traditional mandate of managing chronic pain. A recent peer-reviewed research publication in the SVOA Medical Research journal highlights how pain clinics are contributing to societal safety by addressing risks that extend beyond the clinical setting; promoting safer roads, stronger families, and healthier workplaces.

The clinical …

Conditions and diseases

Why chronic pain patients and doctors are both under attack

Richard A. Lawhern, PhD

August 21, 2025Aug 21, 2025

At age 81, I am one of "the old guys" who writes in online chronic pain support groups. I get a lot of emails from people in pain. One recent inquiry was from a lady named Marisa, who asked questions…

At age 81, I am one of “the old guys” who writes in online chronic pain support groups. I get a lot of emails from people in pain. One recent inquiry was from a lady named Marisa, who asked questions that are combined in the title of this article. The following is my response to Marisa and others.

My wife is a chronic pain patient who has multiple medical issues. I …

Physician voices

Why pain doctors face unfair scrutiny and harsh penalties in California

Kayvan Haddadan, MD

August 20, 2025Aug 20, 20252

Pain management physicians, who often prescribe controlled substances like opioids, face intense scrutiny. Critics argue that investigations are overly aggressive, resembling fishing expeditions where investigators search broadly for any evidence of wrongdoing, often beyond the original complaint. A 2023 Los Angeles Times report noted that nearly 10,000 investigations were conducted in 2021–2022, with pain physicians disproportionately targeted due to outdated guidelines predating modern evidence-based practices. For example, the reliance on …

Physician voices

How the quietly efficient physician can turn perception into power

Olumuyiwa Bamgbade, MD

August 14, 2025Aug 14, 2025

In the bustling environment of modern health care, the loudest voices frequently attract the most attention. Yet, a special category of physicians who are less visible but no less significant exists: the efficient, quiet clinicians who are usually underestimated. This…

Underestimation can undermine leadership opportunities for quiet physicians because visibility may play a …

Physician voices

Physician hiring bias in one of America’s most progressive cities

Carlos N. Hernandez-Torres, MD

August 5, 2025Aug 5, 2025

I have been fortunate to practice in several areas of medicine in my career. This has led me to triple board certification in family medicine, palliative medicine, and addiction medicine. I speak Spanish fluently, have a spotless record, and have…

Despite this, after years of applying to prestigious health systems in a major city, I’ve never once been contacted for an interview in …

Physician voices

From errors to resilience: a smarter approach to patient safety

Olumuyiwa Bamgbade, MD

August 1, 2025Aug 1, 2025

Historically, health care has approached safety with a Safety-I lens, emphasizing the prevention of errors and investigating failures. While this method remains significant, contemporary health care’s complex, dynamic, and interdependent nature necessitates proactive and adaptive safety strategies. The emerging Safety-II and Safety-III frameworks provide novel perspectives on safety by prioritizing resilience, real-time adaptation, and learning from success, rather than from failure.

Safety-II shifts the focus from what goes wrong …

Physician voices

Why medical boards are facing growing backlash for abusing power

Kayvan Haddadan, MD

August 1, 2025Aug 1, 2025

In principle, the judicial system is founded on fairness, requiring that guilt or innocence be established based on evidence. All parties including judges, defendants, and plaintiffs should be engaged in a rigorous process of fact presentation and scrutiny. However, in…

In principle, the judicial system is founded on fairness, requiring that guilt or innocence be established based on evidence.

All parties including judges, defendants, and plaintiffs should be engaged in a rigorous process of fact presentation and scrutiny.

However, in stark contrast, political systems often prioritize rule manipulation and fact distortion, seeking validation over truth. This critical distinction between politics and jurisprudence becomes dangerously blurred when examining the conduct of medical boards …

Physician voices

How just culture can reduce burnout and boost health care staff retention

Olumuyiwa Bamgbade, MD

July 30, 2025Jul 30, 2025

Health care systems acknowledge that how they respond to mistakes significantly impacts their workforce's morale, retention, and overall productivity. The consequences of a punitive culture are costly in terms of financial and operational costs, as it discourages reporting, promotes burnout…

Health care systems acknowledge that how they respond to mistakes significantly impacts their workforce’s morale, retention, and overall productivity. The consequences of a punitive culture are costly in terms of financial and operational costs, as it discourages reporting, promotes burnout or fatigue, and aggravates staff turnover. Conversely, implementing a just culture promotes psychological safety, continuous learning, and fairness, which enables health care staff to remain engaged and resilient throughout their …

Physician voices

Emphasizing empathy and equity in value-based health care delivery

Olumuyiwa Bamgbade, MD

July 26, 2025Jul 26, 2025

The transformation of care delivery is driven by value-based health care (VBHC). In addition to its cost-effectiveness and clinical efficiency, the success of VBHC depends upon its ability to exemplify empathy and equity. Usually disregarded in pursuing metrics, data, and integrated payments, these two pillars are indispensable for implementing a system that provides dignity and equity to all patients. Embedding empathy and equity into health care delivery is no longer …

Physician voices

Time theft: the unseen harm of abusive oversight

Kayvan Haddadan, MD

July 17, 2025Jul 17, 2025

Theft, in its essence, is the unlawful taking of something valuable from another. While usually associated with material possessions, it also extends to intangible assets such as time, reputation, and emotional well-being. When authorities like medical boards or the Department of Justice (DOJ) engage in unfair practices grounded in presumptive guilt, they are not just misusing their roles but actively stripping individuals of these invaluable resources—an abuse of power that …

Physician voices

Harassment and overreach are driving physicians to quit

Olumuyiwa Bamgbade, MD

July 16, 2025Jul 16, 20252

In the noble pursuit of healing, physicians, especially those in pain clinics, are increasingly caught between the growing burden of patient expectations and a tightening web of regulatory scrutiny. A recent clinical study and a related article on KevinMD converge to highlight a deeply troubling reality: Clinicians are not only being harassed by distressed patients but are also being punished by the systems meant to regulate or protect health care.

A …

Conditions and diseases

Why specialist pain clinics and addiction treatment services require strong primary care

Olumuyiwa Bamgbade, MD

July 13, 2025Jul 13, 20252

Specialist pain clinics and addiction management services are vital in addressing some of the most complex and costly health care conditions. However, their success depends on stable and robust primary care systems. Without strong primary care as a foundation, these health care initiatives risk fragmentation, poor continuity, and low patient accountability. Stable primary care ensures timely access, coordinated care, longitudinal monitoring, and patient engagement, all essential elements for the value-based …

Conditions and diseases

Reframing chronic pain and dignity: What a pain clinic teaches us about MAiD and chronic suffering

Olumuyiwa Bamgbade, MD

July 9, 2025Jul 9, 2025

Canada is one of the few countries permitting Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) for individuals with non-terminal chronic pain. While this respects individual autonomy, it also introduces a duty of care: We must ensure that death is not chosen because of inadequate care. Some Canadian advocacy groups, like the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA), have expressed deep concerns over how MAiD is being expanded in Canada.

The BCCLA initially …

Pain management

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