Welcome to the home of my ‘blogs’.
It is difficult to write in a way that will be necessarily understood by everyone because inevitably medical terminology can be quite hard to understand. At this stage the main audience for my blog will likely be other health professionals. However, if you are a layperson it is probably best if you read my ‘Understanding Pain and Persistent Pain’ document and explore the resources on the ‘for patients’ page and I would be happy to answer questions if seeking more clarification on an individual basis.
If you are looking for the standard stuff on pain, you won’t find it here. This is amply covered elsewhere and seems to me to be as yet lost in translation. Despite the excellent research available, this is struggling to permeate into standard practice versus the tsunami of ‘technology’ focussed management methods. I attended the Australian Pain Society meeting for the first time in 2015 and an observation was that the pharmaceutical and interventional sessions were very well attended. This contrasted with the substantially lower attendances at the psychology / sociology / educational focussed sessions. I think that says it all.
Blog 19: Painless informed consent
Not only does it simply make sense that people need to be appropriately informed about the risks and benefits of treatments before they consent to having them, but it is…
Blog 18: A Sports & Exercise Medicine and Pain Revolution Copulation
The Australasian College of Sports & Exercise Physicians have had the vision to sponsor the Pain Revolution this year. I was asked to provide a blog and the completed result…
Blog 17: Harnessing placebo – “When I say whoa, I mean whoa!”
I recently attended an interesting two day symposium organised by the University of Sydney using the following banner: The “harnessing placebo mechanisms” slogan was elaborated on in the stated aims…
Blog 16: Le Bouchon de la Douleur ie: The Traffic Jam (literally ‘the plug’) of Pain.
I love riding my bike in France. One of the reasons is that there is a notable difference in the temperament of the traffic, especially compared with Melbourne, my home…
Blog 15: “Save a life, save a whole world”
I had an interesting medical experience in my role as a medico for the Melbourne Football Club aka the ”Demons’ in the AFL (Australian Rules Football) competition in 2007. One…
Blog 14: The problem with carrots.
Carrots are a well-known symbol for incentives influencing activity. Dangling a carrot in front of the donkey, there was incentive for forward movement in the indicated direction. Sticks were used painfully at…
Blog 13: Politics, fear and pain.
The easy Donald Trump victory this last week in the US elections was predictable despite the polls that consistently suggested the opposite. It was indeed my intention to write this…
Blog 12b: Be careful what you believe; it can become your reality (part two).
Following on from the first part of this two-part blog, here are some other examples of unhelpful comments. These comments are, at best, thinly evidenced in science and are therefore more accurately…
Blog 12a: Be careful what you believe; it can become your reality (part one).
Furthermore, and more importantly if you are a health professional or in another position of influence, it can become someone else’s reality. For those of you who believe they understand…
Blog 11: My first visit to Planet Academia.
A manuscript has just recently been submitted for publication with my contribution and collaboration. I have always been more of a coal face worker, basing my writings on my observations,…
Blog 10: ‘I feel your pain’
What a lovely, empathic statement. It just isn’t true. No one can truly feel anyone else’s pain. Even those who are so empathic that they feel pain while considering other’s…
Blog 9: Crime and Punishment
In my core sports medicine days providing support for footballers and other athletes I would mostly be amazed at how brilliant the results were after even very serious injuries. I also…
Blog 8: Twenty-two Pain ‘Catch 22s’
If the meaning of the phrase ‘catch 22’ is googled one of the first definitions discovered is: “a dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of…
Blog 7: Making a mountain out of a ‘pain’ hill
Making a mountain out of a mole ‘pain’ hill. I often use the metaphor of a ‘pain hill’ when I am describing what is needed to be done to improve and achieve a…
Blog 6: The ZOO in the room
A while ago I was inspired enough to write a comment on an article in the Australian Doctor website by a Jane Hall who is professor of Health Economics at the University of…
Blog 5: Pain is SUCH a pain!!
Persistent pain just isn’t sexy. For one thing just ask patients with the problem. If you have almost any other medical condition the sympathy and support around you is more…
Blog 4: “He (or she) done it!”
Please contemplate the following metaphorical imagery: ‘What is he on about now’, I hear you say. The image on the left is a view from a downstairs window and is…
Blog 3: “Sorry, but there are SO many more than 50 shades of grey in pain”
Medical experts love getting together and negotiating consensus positions for diagnostic and treatment guidelines and definitions. For example you are considered to have persistent (previously known as chronic) pain when you pass the…
Blog 2: “The extraordinarily different body structure of the compensation patient”
One of the most common comments you will hear in the orthopaedic world is – “The results of management, various interventions and surgeries are much worse in patients with a compensable…
Blog 1: “What do the common cold and persistent pain have in common?”
Here it goes – the first instalment of my blog series. It is titled as above. I took this photo the other day at my local train station on the…