Did you hear the one about the pain clinic that flooded? Oh yeah, that one - it wasn't very funny but it was true. Yes, we came to work one day a couple of weeks ago only to find our office was now a wading pool. And we'll be out of it for at least a month. But thanks to the kind hearts of other tennants in our building, we have managed to find clinics to see patients and desks to put staff at. But I'm using this as my excuse to be massively disorganized right now. Yes, half my pain diaries stuff is locked in my file cabinet at work - which is in the middle of my office probably with my desk and chair on top of it. Luckily, all my interview and research stuff is wtih me all the time, so I can keep writing and working on that part of it.
But it kind of speaks to the fortitude of our staff again. There are certain specialties in medicine that people are called to, and chronic pain seems to be one of those specialties. They are doubling and tripling up desks and stepping over each other's feet, but patient care always comes first.
One thing I have learned so far while doing interviews is that a lot of patients have been frustrated by their medical care in relation to their chronic pain. It takes years to get to see the right kind of specialist and lots of other tried and failed medications and treatments. But it's not because doctors don't care. Quite the opposite really. It's amazing how much doctors do care. What one of the big problems seems to be is training. And because pain has not been well understood, doctors don't get a lot of training in how to deal with it. Some get none. So not only do the patients get frustrated, but the doctors get frustrated.
That is why projects like this are so important. This is a great opportunity for outreach into the community, not only for our friends and families to gain some understanding, but maybe for the medical professionals to get a new perspective on pain too. You see, these people I work with that have this calling also want to be evangelists. They want to get the word out there. And the more people that know and understand pain, the quicker treatmetn can e provided, the better off everything will be, right?
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