Practical Pain Management Approaches for Advanced Illness

Nurse practitioners and other licensed prescribers are seeing an increasing number of patients with pain caused by advanced illnesses such as cancer, organ failure, respiratory disease, and other conditions. If you’re a prescriber in any health setting, you need effective pain management strategies based on the latest available research to treat these vulnerable patients. This 8-week instructor-led online course gives you pharmacological, non-pharmacological, and integrative approaches for treating pain in people with advanced illness. You’ll learn how to define pain; how pain affects the whole person; how to perform multidimensional assessments; and how to understand and apply appropriate pain management strategies to best treat each patient. Delivered through the Institute’s signature interactive online learning platform, this unique curriculum features in-depth case studies, group discussion, and rigorous content that can be accessed anywhere, anytime.

Course Information STARTS:TBD LOCATION: Online COST: $729 CE CREDITS: 48 Hours X Contact Us Email * First Name * Last Name * Job Title * Company * Phone Message *   Submit Have a question about this course? Contact Us

What You’ll Learn This comprehensive course provides instruction to help you prepare for the certification including: Differentiate and assess sources of pain, including spiritual, cultural, and emotional influences on pain. Appropriately evaluate pain treatment options including over-the-counter medications, Cannabis, opioid and other pharmacologic therapies, along with complementary approaches. Negotiate treatment modalities within the context of patient goals of care, recognizing your own biases. Correctly navigate initiation, maintenance, and escalation of ongoing opioid therapies for pain management throughout the disease trajectory, assessing issues like substance use, patient-controlled pain approaches, risks, and benefits.

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What You’ll Earn

When you complete this course, you’ll earn:

• 48 continuing education (CE) credits provided through California State University San Marcos (CSUSM) Extended Learning, accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) and approved by the California Board of Registered Nurses, Provider #CEP11422.
  OR

• 48 Continuing Medical Education (CME) credits.

• 14 Pharmacology CEs (included in the 48-CE total)

Course Schedule

This Instructor-led, online course allows you to work on your own schedule each week with recorded lectures, readings, discussions, case studies, and quizzes. Time commitment should be approximately 5-7 hours per week.

Week 1: Foundational Concepts of Pain Management - Learn to differentiate between categories of pain; how those categories correlate to treatment pathways; and how to assess pain in the context of sociocultural influences.

Week 2: Complementary and Herbal Pain Therapies - Navigate goals of care discussions with patients of varied sociocultural, economic, and religious beliefs; and will learn how to discuss efficacies and limitations of non-prescriptive herbal and complementary pain therapies.

Week 3: Non-Pharmacologic and Non-Opioid Pharmacologic Pain Management  – Learn to identify and address psychological, spiritual, and emotional components and etiologies of pain; become knowledgeable in interventional pain procedures; and learn to navigate non-opioid, adjuvant, and adjunct therapeutic pathways of pain management.

Week 4: Mid-Course Review and Application – You will begin a progressive case study on neuropathic pain (3 parts). You must complete each discussion to progress to the next part.  

Week 5: Foundational Concepts of Opioid Pain Management – Learn to identify structural legal and political issues surrounding opioid pain management and apply pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamics drug concepts to risk-benefit decision making for opioid therapies.

Week 6: Opioid Pain Management in Practice, Part I – Navigate initiation, maintenance, and escalation of ongoing opioid therapies for pain management throughout the disease trajectory.

Week 7: Opioid Pain Management in Practice, Part II – Learn to convert enteral therapies to parenteral patient-controlled analgesia therapies; navigate pain management efficacies and fears with patients who have substance abuse histories; and understand special considerations for methadone and fentanyl as primary or adjunct pain-management therapies.

Week 8: Final Course Review and Application – You will complete a case study (4 parts) progressing from the mid-course example, and covering opioid initiation and dose finding; adjunct therapy and opioid side effects; maintenance dosing and dose escalation; and equianalgesia and PCA infusion. 

Completion and Refunds

In order to complete this course and obtain a certificate, you must view the course in its entirety, correctly answer all case studies and quiz/test questions (as appropriate) and complete the evaluation. For instructor-led courses, to quality for a refund, you must request your in writing at least five (5) business days prior to the start of the course. If approved, there will be a $35 administrative fee charged to process the refund.

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