Description:

Significant challenges exist in providing safe and adequate care to the patient with co-occurring chronic pain and opioid use disorder. Establishing trust with and empowering this patient to be an active participant in their health is a difficult but necessary step. During this session, we will identify specific polarizing factors of chronic pain and OUD that make this work difficult and discuss strategies to enhance collaboration between patient and caregiver/prescriber that focus on the risk/benefit ratio in longitudinal care.

Objectives:

1. Identify the three health conditions that should be addressed at every encounter with the chronic pain – opioid use disorder patient. Pain. Drug Dependence. Mental Health.
2. Establish a plan of action for the patient with chronic pain – opioid use disorder that addresses benefits/risks over a defined time period.
3. Be familiar with different treatment strategies for patients with different pain conditions: acute pain, post-op pain, and chronic pain.

Craig Uthe, MD is a board-certified family physician with the American Board of Family Medicine and a member of the American Society of Addiction Medicine. He is the Medical Director of Professional Well-Being at Sanford Health and the Chief Well-Being Officer for the University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine. For over twenty-five years, Dr. Uthe has been a medical advisor to the SD Health Professionals Assistance Program, an organization that provides management services to health care professionals with potentially impairing illnesses & addictions. Dr. Uthe and his wife, Joyce, have three grown children and, more importantly, two grandsons, Luciano and Leonardo, who they enjoy spoiling upon every opportunity.