www.uwanesthesiology.org/pain

UW Pain Medicine
Patient Care

"The current model is that pain is a byproduct of the disease — treat the disease and the pain will be gone, but today we know that pain can itself be a disease."
      —Dr. Cahana, Chief of Pain Medicine

Introduction by the Chief of The Division of Pain Medicine

The University of Washington Division of Pain Medicine provides both inpatient and outpatient services in 9 programs at 5 hospitals: UW Medical Center; Harborview Medical Center; Seattle Children's Hospital; VA Puget Sound Healthcare System; and the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. In each of these programs, we provide multispecialty medical evaluation with an emphasis on diagnosis, goal-setting, effective treatment and follow-up.

The UW Division of Pain Medicine is dedicated to predicting, diagnosing and preventing pain from becoming a disabling disease. In order to predict, clinicians evaluate risks of developing chronic pain after injury, surgery, and disease. To diagnose, we pursue precision diagnosis when possible, permitting target-specific treatment while identifying obstacles to recovery. And to address prevention, providers promote patient education and encourage lifestyle changes.

Our newest outpatient diagnostic and treatment clinic, The UW Center for Pain Relief, is located at UW Medical Center — Roosevelt and part of the UW Medicine academic health system. This facility provides comprehensive pain evaluation and services for patients with difficult to treat acute pain syndromes, and complex persistent pain, including chronic pain associated with:

• Injury or surgery.
• Illness, such as arthritis, diabetes and cancer.
• Syndromes, such as fibromyalgia, visceral and pelvic pain syndromes, complex regional pain syndrome, headaches, muscular (myofascial), and neuropathic pain.
• Spinal pain.

UW Medicine Center for Pain Relief follows an interdisciplinary approach to caring for patients. Specialists in anesthesiology, internal medicine, neurology, neurosurgery, psychiatry, psychology, neuroimaging and musculoskeletal radiology, rehabilitation, sports medicine and vocational counseling work together to provide recognized best practice pain diagnosis and treatment.

UW Division of Pain Medicine has enlarged the scope of its training to medical students, residents and has added a 2-year fellowship program for individuals seeking to deepen their clinical or basic science research. We are involved in pain education of primary care providers locally, statewide, and nationally. UW Pain is active in patient advocacy, guiding legislature to strike a fine balance between maintaining lawful access to Pain care for all, while battling public health challenges related to abuse. UW will continue to provide compassionate Pain care, feedback to the community on patient progress and up-to-date guidance on evidence-based practice.

UW Pain Services include:

• Acute pain inpatient and outpatient consultation and treatment.
• Comprehensive assessment of chronic pain risks due to injury, surgery or trauma.
• Comprehensive cancer pain management.
• Anatomical precision diagnosis of possible cause of pain.
• Identification of obstacles to recovery, such as intercurrent medical illness, psychological distress, chemical dependency, high interference of pain with work or personal life, poor physical condition and/or poor coping skills.
• Highest level of pain treatment in an ambulatory care setting, using multiple treatment approaches, such as medications, alternative medicine, rehabilitation counseling, focused psychological methods, psychopharmacology and image-guided minimally invasive procedures.
• Prevention of pain through conservative management and/or interventional procedures that target long-term pain relief, including patient education and life-style changes.

Medical firsts

UW Medical Center is home to the world's first multidisciplinary pain clinic, which opened in 1961 and became a world model for the diagnosis, study and treatment of chronic and acute pain. As the birthplace of modern pain medicine, not surprisingly UW Pain faculty serve as key leaders in multiple Pain societies, editorial boards, State, Regional, National (Department of Defense, Food and Drug Administration), and International initiatives (World health Organization, International Association of Study of Pain, World Institute of Pain).

Recent Awards

• 2010 American Pain Society Center of Excellence Award

Contact us:

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Alex Cahana, MD, DAAPM, MEthics
Chief of the Division of Pain Medicine;
Professor, Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine;
Adjunct Professor, Bioethics & Humanities

Box 356540
UW Medical Center
Seattle, WA 98195-6540

Email: acahana@uw.edu
Phone: 206-616-2877
Fax: 206-731-8009