Inexpensive Online Pain Education Program for Physicians as Effective as Live Presentations...

Inexpensive Online Pain Education Program for Physicians as Effective as Live
Presentations by National Experts

TUCSON, Ariz., Feb. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Medical Directions, Inc. (MDI), an
independent digital medical education and publishing company, announces that
its popular online physician education program dealing with the management of
chronic pain has been shown to be as educationally effective as live lectures
by national experts.
The study, which was funded by the National Institute of Neurological
Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), was reported February 5, 2008 in an advance
online publication in the prestigious journal Pain Medicine. Researchers
compared the online education program, authored by a group of pain experts, to
live presentations by other experts, led by Dr. Scott Fishman, the President
of the American Academy of Pain Medicine. Both educational programs were based
on national medical guidelines that encourage physicians to utilize a
comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach to chronic pain rather than rely on
pain medications such as oxycodone.
Data from 95 practicing primary care physicians who were randomly assigned
to spend 4 hours in one of the two pain programs or in a third live meeting
unrelated to chronic pain showed that the physicians attending both pain
education programs had comparable improvements in their pain management
knowledge and beliefs and that these improvements lasted at least 3 months.
Physicians attending the third (control) meeting showed no such improvement.
Educational outcomes were evaluated using a reliable and valid pain education
survey that was also developed with NINDS funding.
Dr. John Harris Jr., the lead author on the report and the President of
MDI described the importance of the research findings, "Chronic pain is a huge
problem that perplexes physicians and patients. Many experts recognize that
physicians need better education in this area, particularly education that is
free from drug company promotion, but until now the resources to do this have
been limited by time and expertise. We now have an effective, inexpensive
Internet pain management education program that is quite popular with
physicians and also as effective as live national experts."
The online pain education program, "Improving Outcomes in Chronic Pain" is
authored by Drs. Charles Cabal, Bennet Davis, and Thomas Elliott. It provides
up to 14.5 AMA PRA Category 1(TM) CME credits for $15 each. It is available to
physicians via The Virtual Lecture Hall (http://www.vlh.com), a physician
education Website supported by physician subscribers and owned by MDI.
About MDI -- MDI is a privately held company that works with academic
medical centers, professional organizations, and government agencies to
develop, evaluate, and distribute online education programs for health
professionals. For more information, please visit http://www.md-inc.com.
SOURCE Medical Directions, Inc.

Dr. John M. Harris Jr., President of Medical Directions, Inc.,
+1-520-722-1970, sharris@md-inc.com