Primary care physicians have the responsibility for the care of patients with chronic pain, often in follow-up to an episode of acute pain treated in an urgent care center, emergency department, or specialty clinic setting. The lack of a full understanding of how chronic pain differs from acute pain can lead to all pain being treated as acute pain, often with opioids. The current widespread use of opioids is essentially a case-finding system that identifies the roughly one-sixth of the adult population particularly susceptible to opioid misuse, sometimes leading to escalating doses, a shift to illegal nonprescription opioids, addiction, and unintentional overdose. 1 The solution to this crisis is not simply a more responsible approach to the use of opioids but rather a comprehensive approach based on an understanding of chronic pain pathophysiology that emphasizes the patientphysician relationship, shared decision making, nonpharmacological treatments, and selective use of nonopioid pharmacotherapy.

Curriculum development is a topic everyone in the field of medical education will encounter. Due to the breadth of ages and types of care provided in Family Medicine, family medicine faculty in particular need to be facile in developing effective curricula for medical students, residents, fellows and for faculty development. In the area of medical education, changing and evolving learning environments, as well as changing requirements necessitate new and innovative curricula to address these evolving needs. The process of developing a medical education curriculum can seem daunting but when broken down into smaller components can become very straightforward and easy to accomplish. This paper focuses on the curriculum development process using a six-step approach: performing a needs assessment, determining content, writing goals and objectives, selecting the educational strategies, implementing the curriculum and, finally, evaluating the curriculum. This process may serve as a template for Family Medicine educators, and all medical educators looking to design (or redesign) their own medical education curriculum.

BackgroundSelf-reported side effects of pain medication are important determinants of treatment course that can affect patient adherence, medication discontinuation and physician decisions. Yet, few studies have investigated patient-level predictors of self-reported pain medication side effects. The present study sought to fill this gap by exploring the impact of physical or sexual abuse history on self-reported pain medication side effects and considered a mediation model in which those effects are transmitted through a centralized pain phenotype and pain catastrophizing.MethodsWe conducted a cross-sectional analysis of 3118 patients presenting to a tertiary-care, outpatient pain clinic.ResultsApproximately 15% of the sample (n=479) reported a lifetime history of abuse. Patients with a lifetime history of abuse, particularly abuse that occurred in both childhood and adulthood, reported more pain medication side effects compared with patients reporting no abuse history. Furthermore, path analysis showed that a centralized pain phenotype and pain catastrophizing mediated the association between lifetime abuse history and the sum of pain medication side effects.ConclusionsThis suggests that individuals who experience abuse may develop a heightened physiological sensitivity to stimuli, as well as a tendency to interpret stimuli negatively, exaggerate the impact of aversive stimuli and undermine their ability to cope with the stressor. This study highlights the need for physicians to understand patient-level predictors of medication tolerance and to consider a history of abuse and trauma in decisions regarding treatment and medication management.

Background and Objectives: The Association of Family Medicine Residency Directors (AFMRD) Physician Wellness Task Force released a comprehensive Well-Being Action Plan as a guide to help programs create a culture of wellness. The plan, however, does not offer a recommendation as to which elements may be most important, least resource intensive, or most feasible. This study sought to identify the most essential components of the AFMRD’s Well-Being Action Plan, as rated by expert panelists using a modified Delphi technique. Methods: Sixty-eight selected experts were asked to participate; after three rounds of surveys, the final sample included 27 participants (7% residents, 38% MD faculty, 54% behavioral science faculty). Results: Fourteen elements were rated as essential by at least 80% of the participants. These components included interventions at both the system and individual level. Of those elements ranked in the top five by a majority of the panel, all but one do not mention specific curricular content, but rather discusses the nature of a wellness curriculum. Conclusions: The expert consensus was that an essential curriculum should begin early, be longitudinal, identify a champion, and provide support for self-disclosure of struggles.

Background and Objectives: Many residency programs are developing resident wellness curricula to improve resident well-being and to meet Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education guidelines. However, there is limited guidance on preferred curricular components and implementation. We sought to identify how specific driving factors (eg, having an identified wellness champion with a budget and protected time to develop wellness programs) impact implementation of essential elements of a resident wellness curriculum. Methods: We surveyed 608 family medicine residency program directors (PDs) in 2018-2019 on available resources for wellness programs, essential wellness elements being implemented, and satisfaction with wellness programming; 251 PDs provided complete responses (42.5% response rate). Linear and logistic regressions were conducted for main analyses. Results: Having an identified wellness champion, protected time, and dedicated budget for wellness were associated with greater implementation of wellness programs and PD satisfaction with wellness programming; of these, funding had the strongest association. Larger programs were implementing more wellness program components. Program setting had no association with implementation. Conclusions: PDs in programs allocating money and/or faculty time can expect more wellness programming and greater satisfaction with how resident well-being is addressed.