PAINWeekEnd Columbus: A Day of Pain Management CME You'll Use All Year!

MONTCLAIR, N.J., May 12, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- There are 116 million people in pain. There are 4,000 pain specialists. That's 29,000 patients per pain specialist. There are simply not enough pain specialists to go around.

What can frontline practitioners do to meet the challenges of this growing public health issue? Attend PAINWeekEnd Columbus!

The 2014 PAINWeekEnd Regional Conference convenes on Saturday, May 17, at the Hyatt Regency Columbus. Now in its 4^th year, PAINWeekEnd Regional Conferences offer a concentrated day of continuing education in pain management designed expressly for frontline practitioners.

Currently, the state of Ohio mandates at least 20 hours of category 1 CME in pain medicine every 2 years for physicians who practice in pain management clinics. PAINWeekEnd attendees can receive 6.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits^™ as they enhance their capabilities in the assessment, diagnosis, and management of chronic pain conditions. Course topics include the transition from acute to chronic pain; rational polypharmacy; effective management of postsurgical pain; and the role of topical and transdermal analgesics in pain therapy. Participants will also learn critically important skills in documentation and lab testing that are essential to navigating today's legal-regulatory environment for prescribers.

Commenting on the PAINWeekEnd series, Debra Weiner, Aventine Managing Partner and Director of Program Development noted, "The dual public health crises of inadequate pain management and the challenges of balancing access to medication with responsible prescribing continue to be felt by primary care practices and their patients. The imbalance between the number of patients with pain and the number of available pain specialists is familiar to us all, and these PAINWeekEnd Conferences are a cost- and time-effective way for primary care clinicians to augment their skills in this critical arena."

In October 2013, the state of Ohio unveiled new guidelines aimed at curbing misuse and abuse of prescription pain medications and unintentional overdoses by patients dealing with long-term chronic pain. These guidelines also encourage prescribers to report their prescriptions to the Ohio Automated Rx Reporting System and to pursue continuing education and training with respect to opioids.

Commenting on these recommendations, Debra Heidrich, RN, MSN, and President of the Ohio Pain Initiative observed, "PAINWeekEnd 2014 in Columbus offers an ideal venue for prescribing clinicians to improve their competence in opioid prescribing, and the legal/regulatory environment that accompanies them. We urge clinicians in the area to consider attending."

PAINWeekEnd Columbus will be held on Saturday, May 17, at the Hyatt Regency Columbus on 350 N. High Street.

The PAINWeekEnd curriculum will be presented by a multidisciplinary faculty and is intended for frontline clinicians including physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and pharmacists. In addition, there will be commercially supported activities, both certified and noncertified, addressing a range of product, disease state, and medical information topics.

The online registration fee for PAINWeekEnd Conferences is $99.

PAINWeekEnd registrants are further offered the opportunity to register for the PAINWeek National Conference, September 3-6, in Las Vegas for $99 off the current online published price. Groups of 5 or more PAINWeekEnd registrants also receive one FREE registration to the PAINWeek National Conference.

To learn more about this or any other PAINWeekEnd Regional Conference (in Atlanta, Houston, Santa Clara, Tarrytown, and Chicago), review the complete Columbus agenda, and register online (at a savings of $25 over the onsite registration fee), visit http://www.painweekend.org.

PAINWeekEnd is sponsored by Global Education Group and produced by Aventine Co., developers of PAINWeek®—the largest US conference on pain management.

SOURCE Aventine Co.