Publications

See research papers and scholaraly articles related to the projects conducted by health care providers associated with the UC Davis Center for Advancing Pain Relief. Articles focus on wide range of pain care and pain management topics, including cancer pain management, safe prescribing of opioids, and person-centered pain care.

Assessing Pain in Older Adults

This article is part of a series, Supporting Family Caregivers: No Longer Home Alone, published in collaboration with the AARP Public Policy Institute. The article appeared in the American Journal of Nursing and provides practical information nurses can share with family caregivers of persons living with pain.

Publication Date: December 2022

Authors: Horgas AL; Bruckenthal P; Chen S; Herr KA; Young HM; Fishman S

Interrupting Biases in the Experience and Management of Pain

This article is part of a series, Supporting Family Caregivers: No Longer Home Alone, published in collaboration with the AARP Public Policy Institute. The article appeared in the American Journal of Nursing and discusses biases nurses need to be aware of when helping patients manage pain.

Publication Date: September 2022

Authors: Booker SQ; Baker TA; Epps F; Herr KA; Young HM; Fishman S

Development of a National Pain Mangement Competency Profile to Guide Entry-Level Physiotherapy Education in Canada

This article published in the Canadian Journal of Pain discusses developing profession-specific competencies related to pain management within the context of entry-level physiotherapy programs across Canada.

Publication Date: January 2022

Authors: Augeard N, Bostick G, Miller J, Walton D, Tousignant-Laflamme Y, Hudon A, Bussières A, Cooper L, McNiven N, Thomas A, Singer L, Fishman SM, Bement MH, Hush JM, Sluka KA, Watt-Watson J, Carlesso LC, Dufour S, Fletcher R, Harman K, Hunter J, Ngomo S, Pearson N, Perreault K, Shay B, Stilwell P, Tupper S, Wideman TH.

History and Epidemiology of Cancer Pain

This article published in the Cancer Treatment and Research Communications journal discusses the history and prevalence of cancer pain.

Publication Date: 2021

Authors: Copenhaver DJ, Huang M, Singh J, Fishman SM

UC Davis Train-the-Trainer Primary Care Pain Management Fellowship: Addressing the Pain Management Education Gap

An article published in Academic Medicine, the journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges, features the center’s Train-the-Trainer Primary Care Pain Management Fellowship program. The research team followed two groups of fellows who completed the 10-month program in 2017 and 2018. Their initial studies show that six months following their completion, the fellows demonstrated improvement and sustained performance in pain competencies as well as increased recognition and understanding of pain.

Publication Date: February 2021

Authors: Fishman, Scott M. M.D.; Copenhaver, David M.D., MPH; Lorenzen, Kathryn MNA; Schlingmann, Ellery; Chung, Christy 

Responding to the Opioid Epidemic: Educational Competencies for Pain and Substance Use Disorder from the Medical Schools of the University of California

The University of California leadership sought to develop a robust educational response to the epidemic of opioid-related deaths. The authors present a novel set of educational competencies that emphasize pain management, the safe use of opioids, and understanding and treating substance use disorder.

Publication Date: February 2021

Authors: Servis M, Fishman SM, Wallace MS, Henry SG, Ziedonis D, Ciccarone D, Knight KR, Shoptaw S, Dowling P, Suchard JR, Shah S, Singh N, Cedarquist LC, Alem N, Copenhaver DJ, Westervelt M, Willis BC

Addressing the Public Health Crisis of Excessive Opioid Prescribing and Inadequate Pain Management Through Closing the Pain Education Gap

A crucial but overlooked component of the opioid crisis is the profound education gap in basic pain management. In this commentary, physician Scott Fishman explores the public health problem of insufficient pain management education and describes several potentially scalable efforts in undergraduate and postgraduate education that can overcome these deficits.

Publication Date: January 2021

Author: Fishman, SM

Cancer Pain Treatment and Management: An Interprofessional Learning Module for Pre-licensure Health Professional Students

The authors discuss the value of interprofessional education (IPE) and interprofessional care in the health sciences. Specifically, this module uses cancer pain as the context through which students can learn interprofessional, team-based, and person-centered approaches to delivery of care.

Publication Date: September 2020

Authors: Fishman SM, Copenhaver D, Mongoven JM, Lorenzen K, Schlingmann E, Young HM

Scope and Nature of Pain- and Analgesia-Related Content of the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE)

This article discusses how the existing United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) questions mention pain and focus on assessment skills, but do not delve into actual effective pain management strategies.

Publication Date: March 2018

Authors: Fishman SM, Carr DB, Hogans B, Cheatle M, Gallagher RM, Katzman J, Mackey S, Polomano R, Popescu A, Rathmell JP, Rosenquist RW, Tauben D, Beckett L, Li Y, Mongoven JM, Young HM

An Interprofessional Consensus of Core Competencies for Pre-Licensure Education in Pain Management: Curriculum Application for Nursing

The authors of this article discuss how embedding pain management core competencies into pre-licensure nursing education is crucial to ensure that nurses have the essential knowledge and skills to effectively manage pain and to serve as a foundation on which clinical practice skills can be later honed.

Publication Date: June 2016

Authors: Herr K, Marie BS, Gordon DB, Paice JA, Watt-Watson J, Stevens BJ, Bakerjian D, Young HM

Implementing a Paradigm Shift: Incorporating Pain Management Competencies into Pre-Licensure Curricula

This article reviews how the use of competencies creates historical context for a shift from teaching to learning and concludes with suggestions and exemplars in applying core competencies for pain management in pre-licensure programs.

Publication Date: February 2015

Authors: Arwood E, Rowe JM, Singh NS, Carr DB, Herr KA, Chou R

An Interprofessional Consensus of Core Competencies for Prelicensure Education in Pain Management: Curriculum Application for Physical Therapy

A Physical Therapy article co-authored by members of the executive committee and competency advisory committee advocates for and identifies how core competencies for pain can be applied to entry-level physical therapy curriculum.

Publication Date: April 2014

Authors: Hoeger Bement MK, St Marie BJ, Nordstrom TM, et al. 

Advancing Pain Care-Core Competencies for Pain Management

Because the nature of pain is inadequately addressed as a population health problem in curricula, Kenneth Kizer, former director of the Institute for Population Health Improvement at UC Davis Health and a former professor at the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis, endorses the core competencies reported by the interdisciplinary consortium in a Pain Medicine article.

Publication Date: June 2013

Author: Kizer KW

Commentary: Adopting Pain Management Competencies

This commentary in Pain Medicine journal focuses on the importance of adopting core pain management competencies into practice.

Publication Date: May 2013

Authors: Koebner IJ, Herr K

Improving Pain Practices Through Core Competencies

Executive Committee Member for the Interprofessional Pain Management Competency Program Judy Watt-Watson wrote a Pain Medicine commentary, “Improving Pain Practices Through Core Competencies,”  expressing the need to integrate competency-based pain education into curricula.

Publication Date: May 2013

Authors: Watt-Watson J, Siddall PJ

Core Competencies for Pain Management: Results of an Interprofessional Consensus Summit

A Pain Medicine article written by UC Davis faculty and experts from around the globe describes the development of core competencies in pain management education for new health care professionals.

Publication Date: April 2013

Authors: Fishman SM, Young HM, Lucas Arwood E, et al.