(608) Pain Management and End‐of‐Life Care: A Well‐Received New Course

Authors: Hui Ming Chang, The University of Texas at Houston and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Richard Payne, Memorial Sloan‐Kettering Cancer Center, Patricia Butler, Philip R Orlander, James T Willerson, L. Maximillian Buja, The University of Texas Houston Health Science Center Pain management and End‐of‐Life Care is a new elective course for first‐ and second‐year medical students at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. A cross‐disciplinary and cross‐institutional faculty teaches the course. There are 11 faculty members from the University of Texas at Houston, the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and the Hospice at the Texas Medical Center. The course curriculum covers: 1) common physical and psychological symptoms that accompany terminal illness and the impact of inadequately‐controlled symptoms on quality of life; 2) pain assessment, pathophysiology of pain, pharmacology of opioid and non‐opioid analgesics, interventional pain management, and management of neuropathic pain. The course was very well received. The average attendance for each session was 157 students with 160 students completing the requirements and receiving credits. Though the course was designed for first‐ and second‐year medical students, the actual attendance reflected the interest and need of a much larger group of people. The attendance included third‐ and fourth‐year medical students, students from the dental school, the school of public health, graduate students, students from other universities in Houston, and faculty members from the medical school and dental school. Ninety‐two students completed evaluations at the end of the course. One hundred percent of the evaluations strongly agree or agree that this is a good course (62 students strongly agree, 20 students agree). The overall student satisfaction was high (3.54 was the evaluation average on a 1–5 scale, where 5 was the best score). The written comments were overwhelmingly positive. Our first year experience in offering this elective course to 160 students showed that it is very well attended and evaluated favorably by the students. It is important that we educate students early on pain medicine.