The state’s pain management commission wants to change the way medical students in Oregon learn about pain.
The feds just announced a 14 percent increase in the number of deaths from drug overdoses. Many of those involved people taking pain relievers.
Health organizations around the state are adopting new guidelines to reduce opioid prescriptions.
But Dr. Catriona Buist with the Oregon Pain Management Commission, says Oregon schools need to align their curricula with the ‘International Association for the Study of Pain.'
“It accumulates all the various bodies of knowledge and research that’s out there on pain and brings it all together, to make sure we’re including that in our curriculum and understanding of treatment of chronic pain,” she said.
The commission expects to spend the next three years reaching out to all the medical schools in the state, whether they train doctors, naturopaths, acupuncturists or nurses.