2025 Pain Medicine Short Course

Why do the course

This course is an introductory overview of perioperative and acute-on-chronic pain management relevant to medical, nursing, and allied health staff. Through following the journey of a patient with chronic pain who needs acute care and new surgery, participants will develop an appreciation of the burden of chronic pain, the mechanisms behind both acute and chronic pain, how to best assess patients with pain, and ways we can modify the patient experience to help minimise the burden of pain in these patients.

Objectives

• Identify mechanisms of acute and chronic pain.
• Explain the role of biological, psychological, and social factors in the development and perpetuation of pain.
• Identify mechanisms of action and clinical considerations in using common analgesics.
• Identify risk factors for persistent post-surgical pain and persistent opioid use after surgery and risk mitigation strategies.
• Analyse various techniques to assess patients in pain, including diverse population groups.
• Explain the role of preoperative pain optimisation, using pharmacological and non-pharmacological techniques.
• Identify the physiology and clinical implications of patients with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome.

Course Dates

• May Course: 5 May - 13 June 2025
• September Course: 15 September - 24 October 2025

Information

• Six-week course and six modules (one released each week).
• Allows for flexibility in work patterns – once a module is released weekly, lectures and reading material can be viewed at your own pace and at any time.
• Online only; no on-campus attendance is required.
• Each module consists of a reading package, journal articles, short videos, podcasts, and interactive knowledge check sections or a combination of these.
• No assessment (nor minimum pass mark).
• All participants have an additional month to complete the modules.
• You can download the Certificate of Completion at the end of the course if you have accessed and completed all the course modules and the final course survey.

Time Commitment:

4 - 6 hours per week (on average)

Eligibility

This course is aimed at any clinical staff who would like an introductory overview of perioperative and acute-on-chronic pain management.

This includes but is not limited to:

• Doctors (all specialties)
• Nurses
• Allied Health

Course Modules

Six modules will be offered in this course released on a weekly basis.

There are no assessments for this short course.

Module 1 - Pain Primer

• Learn normal and abnormal pain physiology.
• Differentiate nociceptive, nociplastic and neuropathic pain.
• Learn mechanisms of action and clinical considerations in using analgesic medications.

Module 2 - Pain history taking

• Understand the biopsychosocial model of clinical pain assessment.
• Learn clinical history taking in pain medicine.

Module 3 - Risk Stratifying Pain Management

• Appreciate the role of pre-operative psychological and pharmacological optimisation prior to surgery.
• Be aware of risk factors for persistent post-surgical pain and persistent opioid use after surgery.

Module 4 - In-hospital peri-operative management of pain

• Understand principles of acute pain management.
• Determine strategies for acute pain management in difficult patient populations.

Module 5 - Post-hospital management of pain after surgery

• Appreciate the expect pain trajectory after surgery.
• Develop strategies to manage pain after surgery within the real-world context.
• Appreciate opioid risk-mitigation strategies in post-operative context.

Module 6 - Complex regional pain syndrome

• Understand physiology and clinical implications of patients with a past history of CRPS.
• Learn how to recognise and manage acute CRPS.
• Learn how to manage a patient with a past history of CRPS in peri-operative context.

Please note: Course modules may be subject to change. Last Updated: November 2024