Project 460708

An estimated 8 million, or one in four Canadians suffer from chronic pain, costing the Canadian economy roughly $40 billion in 2019. Unfortunately, a gap exists between pain research and clinical practice. We are at a critical juncture where research of pain mechanisms and management strategies require effective translation to ensure the best outcomes for patients. For 20 years, the Interfaculty Pain Curriculum has brought together 1,000 students from the University of Toronto across health disciplines including medicine, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, physician assistants, and social work. This program has consistently demonstrated significant improvements in pain knowledge as well as interprofessional collaboration and communication. To celebrate and build a consortium of key players to advance knowledge translation and pain education science, we will host a National Pain Education Symposium in Summer 2022. The Symposium will enable stakeholders to share and design novel approaches for interprofessional pain education, pain education scholarship, and formal pain education collaboration by bringing together the best and brightest experts from the University of Toronto and across the country. A primary strength of this application is the dynamic and diverse planning committee bringing together pain education leaders from across the country and many different backgrounds. Representatives from British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Ontario, and Nova Scotia are included, and have provided letters of support. Likewise, there is integral involvement of people with lived and living expertise of pain, all of whom have expertise in pain education and pain advocacy leadership. Finally, this planning committee includes multiple members who identify from communities that are typically underrepresented in health research, education, and knowledge translation activities.