Pain Management Traineeship

“I wanted to get more familiar with pain management so I could do a better job with my patients. My knowledge base expanded greatly during my time in the traineeship. I brought back a lot of information and was able to give presentations regarding not just practice methods but also information about emerging treatment regimens, and how the team in Tampa used them. The thing that stayed with me was how [the preceptor] had created a place for a pharmacist on the pain management team and how she interacted with those team members to make sure they had the information they needed to best treat the patient.”
--Melissa Ubbens, Pharm.D., Clinical Pharmacist, General Surgery Division, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC

“I wanted to see how other clinics handle their pain patients. We got to know every member of the multidisciplinary team, which included a psychiatrist, a neurologist, a nurse practitioner, a mental health professional, pharmacists, and pharmacy residents and students. I learned to use adjuvant therapies differently in the traineeship. It gave me more confidence in what I did. It was so worthwhile to see what they did in their clinic – having that hands-on training and having the minds of those who do pain management well at my disposal was very valuable."
--Sara Doruska, Pharm.D., Clinical Pharmacist, VA Hospital, Iowa