When ISMS member Aaron Newcomb, DO, was in training, he was taught that treating chronic pain was simply a matter of reducing pain. “I was initially told that chronic pain served no purpose, and we should do anything and everything

The United States has the highest rate of substance abuse¹ in the world, and individuals are exposed to drugs in a way that is unprecedented. Opioid abuse, in particular, has become perhaps the largest public health crisis of our time. Efforts are underway at all levels of government to a...

Two ISMS members are using a powerful free resource to make a difference in combating prescription drug abuse. As pain physicians, Sandeep D. Amin, MD, and Asokumar Buvanendran, MD, evaluate several patients a day in their office. Routinely, they use the Illinois Prescription Monitoring Program to c...

According to a 2012 survey cited in the Institute of Medicine’s report Dying in America: Improving Quality and Honoring Individual Preferences Near the End of Life, more than 75 percent of respondents reported an interest in talking to their physicians about end-of-life care issues. The sam...

An estimated 157,000 Illinois residents are infected with the Hepatitis C virus (HCV). Experts have determined that baby boomers (people born between 1945 and 1965) are five times more likely than other adults to be infected. Approximately 75% of people diagnosed with chronic Hepatitis C in the Unit...