Pain management trainings
Learning modules and educational resources
All too often, students in different fields of medicine become trapped in silos of learning and interactions. It can be easy for medical students to interact only with medical students, for nursing students to meet and learn only from nursing students, and so on. The real world of health care, however, is often highly interprofessional, with teams of clinicians working to treat patients with complex conditions and life situations.
The team at the UC Davis Center for Advancing Pain Relief works to break down the silos and improve learning experiences across the wide range of health professions. As a first step, a set of three interprofessional learning modules about pain management were developed, through funding from the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation as well as The Milbank Foundation and The MAYDAY Fund. These modules were created in a process that was, itself, very interprofessional, bringing together teams of clinicians, researchers and students from nursing, medicine, pharmacy, social work, psychiatry, and other specialties.
Each module outlined below focuses on a set of core competencies in pain management and interprofessional practice and includes a facilitator guide, detailed content, fully developed case studies and an evaluation survey. These case-based training modules are focused on key issues in clinical pain management and are appropriate for all health providers.
Learning modules
Cancer Pain and Treatment Options
Teaching guide (PDF | 825 KB)
This learning module uses chronic pain care as the context through which students can learn interprofessional, team-based, person-centered approaches to delivery of care. Using the facilitator’s guide, handouts and other materials developed for this project, this learning module can be delivered as an in-person training session (approximately 120 minutes) for small groups of learners (teams of 8-12 students drawn from multiple health care professions or schools).
Pain and Culture
Teaching guide (PDF | 1.8 MB)
This learning module uses chronic pain care as the context through which students can learn interprofessional, team-based, person-centered approaches to delivery of care. Using the facilitator’s guide, handouts and other materials developed for this project, this learning module can be delivered as an in-person training session (approximately 120 minutes) for small groups of learners (teams of 8-12 students drawn from multiple health care professions or schools).
Pain and the Older Adult
Teaching guide (PDF | 1.5 MB)
This learning module uses chronic pain care as the context through which students can learn interprofessional, team-based, person-centered approaches to delivery of care. Using the facilitator’s guide, handouts and other materials developed for this project, this learning module can be delivered as an in-person training session (approximately 120 minutes) for small groups of learners (teams of 8-12 students drawn from multiple health care professions or schools).
Testimonials
Here’s what some of the students who participated in interprofessional workshops on pain management at UC Davis said about their experience:
“I appreciated even more the interprofessional roles in managing pain. I was happy to have my colleagues to refer to when I didn't know or was unsure about something.”
— Medical student
“This module reinforced the importance of interprofessional collaboration and definitely highlighted the desire everyone has to work with providers from different professions.”
— Pharmacy student
“The need for interprofessional pain management became more real and more important to me, and I want to push and advocate for it in the future.
— Social work student
