Barry A. Eagel, MD

VIENNA, Austria-Since most palliative care pain patients will require one or more changes in drugs due to inadequate pain relief, “physicians caring for terminally ill patients must be familiar with multiple drugs and routes of delivery,” Eduardo Bruera, MD, chairman of the Pain Department, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, said at the 9th World Congress on Pain, sponsored by the International Association for the Study of Pain.

BETHESDA, Md-Studies in end-of-life care must be introduced into the standard medical school curriculum, David E. Weissman, MD, of the Medical College of Wisconsin, said at the First International Conference on Research in Palliative Care, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the US Cancer Pain Relief Committee. “They don’t know what they don’t know,” Dr. Weissman said in his presentation on the need to change palliative care practice in academic medical centers.

BETHESDA, Md-Children and elderly people with pain present special problems in assessing the presence and causes of pain and other symptoms, as well as determining treatment efficacy, two pain specialists said at the 1st International Conference on Research in Palliative Care, held at the NIH.

BETHESDA, Md--"Patient satisfaction" is one measure used to assess the need for quality improvements in the hospital setting. However, since "satisfaction" is a personal evaluation by the patient of health services or providers, the parameters being measured may vary widely

BETHESDA, Md--How important is it to prevent opioid-induced constipation in patients taking opioids for cancer pain? "Some patients have said they would rather live with the pain than suffer with constipation," Joseph F. Foss, MD, assistant professor of anesthesia, University of Chicago, said at the First International Conference on Research in Palliative Care, held at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).