WGME's 'Your Health' features ³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏ's Spring Symposium on chronic pain
WGME 13's Kim Block, who was a moderator for a panel discussion during ³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏ's Eleventh Annual Interprofessional Education Spring Symposium on "The Science of Pain and the Art of Healing" on April 4th, also featured the symposium on her news segment "Your Health."
In the segment, Block noted that "there are an estimated 100 million chronic pain patients around the country - many of them are wanting to be heard, let alone treated. Thursday, they were at least ‘heard’ at a symposium put on by the ³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏ, hoping to remove some of the myths about chronic pain patients."
Among those interviewed for the story, Edward Bilsky, Ph.D., ³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏ associate provost for research and scholarship and director of the Center for Excellence in the Neurosciences, told Block that:"We're hoping to dispel these [myths] and educate the future physicians, the future pharmacists, the future physical therapists and social workers so they can better listen to the patient in pain and understand it as disease rather than symptoms."
Shelley Cohen Konrad, Ph.D., LCSW, associate professor, ³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏ School of Social Work, and director, ³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏ InterProfessional Education Collaborative, was also interviewed: "I think if we added science and compassion and the capacity to see this as a significant disease process rather than a secondary condition there would be a human savings in suffering and financial savings for all areas of life."