With this in mind, a group of faculty from nine different clinical departments has offered an elective on the subject since 1995. Faculty rotate as course directors and this semester's director is Dr. Mary Heye, acute nursing care. Student response to past courses has been very gratifying. Most of the faculty donate time to this effort. This semester, faculty include Drs.
Student evaluations seem very positive concerning the impact of the course.
I think this is one of the most important ways in which health care personnel can help their patients. The course focuses on acute and chronic pain as well as pain caused by cancer. Students study actual cases and learn an interdisciplinary team perspective, and how to consider the classification, characteristics and assessment of pain, and the interventions for pain control ranging from pharmacologic and invasive to cognitive and physical. Faculty and students represent acute nursing care, occupational therapy, instructional development, rehabilitation medicine, anesthesiology, orthodontics, physical therapy, occupational therapy, clinical pharmacy, medicine and orthodontics. One portion of the problem-based format has students post answers to questions on the U.T. TeleCampus WebBoard.