Deconstructing One Medical School's Pain Curriculum: II. Partnering with Medical Students on an Evidence-Guided Redesign.

Pain Medicine; Education; Curriculum; Medical Students Setting and subjects. University-affiliated medical school and its fourth-year medical students. Methods. Analysis of a detailed inventory of firstand second-year curricula. Survey of graduating medical students assessing attitudes, skills, and confidence. Construction of a fourth-year pain education elective and collaboration with enrollees to better integrate pain throughout the four-year curriculum. Results. This student-faculty collaboration produced an evidence-guided proposal to reorganize painrelated content across the longitudinal medical curriculum. An attitudes/skills/confidence survey of graduating medical students (104 respondents of 200 polled) found that 70% believed chances for successful outcomes treating chronic pain were low. Self-evaluated competency was high for evaluating (82%) and managing (69%) acute pain; for chronic pain, both were lower (evaluating538%; managing56%). Self-evaluated knowledge of pain physiology and neurobiology was poor (14%), fair (54%), or good (30%), but rarely excellent (2%). Conclusions. To meet graduating students' desire for increased competency in pain, pain-related curricula can and should be reorganized to include pain as a disease state and a widespread public health burden, not merely a symptom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]