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Ask The Experts - Premier Pain Centers - Peter S. Staats
06/28/2011
Premier Pain Centers – www.premierpain.com
Peter S. Staats, MD, MBA, FIPP, DABPM, ABIPP is an interventional pain management physician for Premier Pain Centers in Centra lNJ.He is also an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine and the Department of Oncology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.Voted into America’s Top Doctors, New Jersey’s Top Doc, Who’s Who in America, and Who’s Who in American Medicine, Dr. Staats is also the recipient of the President’s Distinguished Service Award and has been cited for Excellence in Pain Management from the Southern Pain Society, and has received the distinguished service award from the Academy of Pain Medicine on two separate occasions.
Shrewsbury Office
160 Avenue At The Common, Suite 1
Shrewsbury, NJ 07702
(732) 380-0200
Manalapan Office
50 Franklin Lane, Suite 203
Manalapan, NJ 07726
(732) 972-2345
Brick Office
150 Chambers Bridge Road, Suite 201
Brick, NJ 08724
(732) 458-0322
Brunswick Office
561 Cranbury Road
East Brunswick, NJ 08816
(732) 254-0883
While pain management may be a common specialty to some, there are many of us who may not have a clear understanding. For our readers can you shed some light on what pain management encompasses?
The field of pain management is the oldest and yet newest specialty of medicine. For literally thousands of years patients would come to the doctor or shaman with complaints of pain. It was that physician's job to diagnose and manage the pain. Initial diagnoses would include spirits invading the body, or evil humors out of balance. Today we recognize the complexity of pain and have formalized the study, diagnosis and management of pain as a respected field of medicine. Pain physicians of the 21st century still concentrate on the diagnosis and management of acute and chronic painful conditions, but we have a much more sophisticated understanding of the neurobiology of pain.
Do patients generally visit pain management specialists from of a referring physician, or, if their insurance allows, can they come to you directly? And, can they come to you first for a diagnosis in addition to the pain treatment?
Patients most frequently come to us directly, although referral from one's physician is also quite common. The pain management physician understands the scope of options for most patients with chronic pain. Think about the pain physician as a general contractor who knows how to build a house. The general contractor knows how to build the house but knows when a plumber or electrician is necessary. Similarly, the pain physician knows when open surgery or therapy is necessary and may need to consult a specialist as well. A general rule is to start conservatively and move to open surgery only when necessary.
What should our readers know about how to select a pain management specialist and what kind of credentials should they be looking for when vetting their choice?
Sir William Osler, America's first physician who led Johns Hopkins Hospital at the turn of the twentieth century, once said that "He who knows syphilis knows medicine." He was alluding to the fact that the disease of syphilis invaded every organ system from the eyes to the kidneys to the nervous system. The competent physician of the late 1800s, early 1900s needed to understand the complexity of the human physiology and what was known about syphilis to care for those with this disease. Today's corollary is Pain Medicine. Pain is exceedingly complex. Today's physician needs to understand how to make the appropriate diagnosis, understand the options for patients with pain, and be skilled with the medications and procedures necessary to treat pain effectively and safely.
Are there any advances or anything being developed in the pain management specialty that you could share with our audience?
Research is becoming reality. As a few examples, in the early 2000s I published a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association on my research on a compound isolated from a snail in the Philippines that when infused in the spine would alleviate pain in patients with cancer. Today that research has led to a drug for intraspinal drug delivery. In the ‘90s I co-patented a method to use an extract of hot peppers to alleviate pain. Last year a pharmaceutical company developed this patent into a drug that is effective for certain types of nerve pain and is now widely available. We have developed minimally invasive procedures on the spine that may make the need for some of the more invasive procedures less necessary. Other new therapies are currently in the research phase that may be available soon.
Can you reflect on your experience? What has changed?
The last twenty years have been very gratifying. Twenty years ago our understanding of pain, and what to do about it was really at its inception. We had a very poor understanding of what pain is and what to do about it. In the ‘80s many physicians thought all patients with pain simply had behavioral problems or were drug addicts. In the early ‘90s Iwrote "Psychological Behaviorism Theory of Pain,"which provided the foundation for understanding how cognitive behavioral theories should be integrated with the field of interventional pain medicine. This approach opened up new understandings for managing pain.
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