The pain management subspecialty has grown rapidly over the last 15 years, and as a result the number and quality of CME courses available has grown as well.

In part this growth is due to pharmacological and procedural advances that allow for better pain control. However, there is also now the recognition that the physiological processes that underlie pain can themselves induce pathology if not adequately controlled. The most obvious example is the development of phantom limb pain after amputation without appropriate spinal anesthesia, but the concept goes beyond amputation to almost any surgical or pain-inducing procedure.

As a result, pain management is becoming an important part of many medical and surgical specialties, ranging from anesthesia (where it got its start), to neuralgias treated by neurologists, to post-surgical pain control managed by surgeons, to cancer pain managed by oncologists, and so on.

Pain management CME courses were initially targeted to anesthesiologists, and are often still listed under Anesthesiology CME, but now target physicians in almost every specialty.

Many states actually mandate that a portion of your CME credits must be related to pain management. Here, for example, are the requirements for licensure in the state of Oregan with regard to pain management CME.

Resources for pain management CME

• The Cleveland Clinic medical education department runs an annual pain management symposium. The 2010 CME event was held in Coronado California.
• NetDoc has an extensive database of CME courses.
• Pain treatment courses are also listed at Pain-Topics.org.
• There are a variety of physician tools for the management of pain available through PainKnowledge.org.