"I Had a Lot More Faith in Doctors Back Then:" An Analysis of Chronic Pain Content in Ontario Medical Curricula

This study is an assessment of pain content in three undergraduate medical curricula in Ontario. While chronic pain is a notoriously common condition affecting one in five Canadians, persistent pain remains undertreated and poorly understood. Physicians failure to adequately manage patients pain has been attributed, in part, to the lack of pain content in medical curricula. It is well-documented, for instance, that medical students receive very few hours of pain education, particularly in comparison to other health professions. While some work has been done to quantify the total amount of pain instruction medical students receive, the content itself has received little attention. There is also a paucity of information regarding what medical students learn about the pain theories, assumptions, beliefs, and medical models framing this content. This study examines the medical curricula at three undergraduate medical schools in Ontario in order to assess what, and how, students learn about pain.