UST Medicine pain center recognized internationally

THE FACULTY of Medicine and Surgery will be receiving recognition from an international pain research and development organization for its contributions to the field and for being the first institution in Southeast Asia to offer a pain medicine course.

Medicine’s post graduate course in pain medicine will be given an award in excellence in pain research and management by the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), the world’s largest organization focused specifically on pain research and management.

This will only be the third time IASP will be giving the award, which recognizes institutions and persons who have made exceptional contributions to pain research and development, since the organization’s inception in 2005.

Medicine, in collaboration with the University of Sydney, founded the post graduate course in pain medicine in November 2008. The two-year post-graduate course is the first of its kind in Asia, and is open to all physicians interested in taking it.

The course was founded by Dr. Jocelyn Que, now director of Center for Pain Management under the faculty, and her medical team on November 3, 2008. A distance education program, pain management course holds classes and other activities online through the facilitation of a team of local and international faculty of experienced academic clinicians. The program adheres to IASP standards.

The curriculum of the University of Sydney was used as a basis for the post graduate course in UST.

“The distance education course we offer is very convenient because students can do class work and even chat and conduct group sessions with the faculty and other enrollees online,” Que said.

But what Que considered as an achievement of the program was its effort to make pain management available not only to Filipinos, but to the rest of Southeast Asia.

“Since it is a distance education course, anyone in Southeast Asia can avail himself of it at a lesser cost than having to go to the University of Sydney,” she said. “It encourages students to take up the course because of its easier accessibility and lower cost.”

Que said understanding pain management can save lives of the many.

“[Pain management] will improve doctors’ understanding of the causes and management of pain for better healthcare delivery, especially for the chronically ill like cancer patients,” she explained.

At present, the program has 17 enrollees.

Medicine will be formally awarded by the IASP during its 13th IASP World Congress on Pain in Quebec, Canada from August 29 to September 2. Julienne Krizia V. Roman