IASP Member News
IASP Members in the Charlie Rose Show
Several prominent IASP members were featured on the Charlie Rose
Show. Charlie Rose Brain Series 2 Episode 11: Pain featured Eric Kandel
of Columbia University; David Julius, University of California, San
Francisco; Allan Basbaum, University of California, San Francisco;
Robert Dworkin, University of Rochester Medical Center; David Borsook of
Boston Children's Hospital; and Laurie Klein, nursing student at
LSU. Watch the show in the Charlie Rose website.
IASP President Interviewed in Brain Science Podcast
IASP President Fernando Cervero was interviewed in the Brain Science
Podcast by Ginger Campbell, MD. The discussion focused on pain as a
complex emotional and sensory experience and delved into his recently
published book Understanding Pain: Exploring the Perception of
Pain, the work of IASP and the Life Before Death feature
film. Listen to the podcast.
Dr. Ronald Melzack Wins Grawemeyer Award
 Honorary Member Ronald Melzack, psychology
professor emeritus at McGill University in Montreal, has won the 2010
University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Psychology. Five
Grawemeyer Awards totaling $1 million are presented annually for
outstanding works in music composition, ideas improving world order,
psychology, education and religion.
One of IASP’s founding members and a past president, Dr.
Melzack proposed a “gate control” theory of pain that
suggests people can change or control their suffering by using emotional
and personal processes to block, increase or decrease the feeling of
pain. His studies led to a conclusion that pain is subjective and
multidimensional, and led to innovative treatments for chronic pain
patients. He also examined “phantom limb” pain, leading to
better understanding of how pain is experienced. The McGill Pain
Questionnaire, developed by Dr. Melzack and a colleague, measures the
sensory and emotional aspects of pain, has been translated into 57
languages and is widely used in clinical research. Dr. Melzack wrote
“The Puzzle of Pain” and co-wrote “The Challenge of
Pain.”
Australian Physiotherapist Awarded Grant to Help Manage Sickle Cell
Disease Pain in Arab Nations
Lois Tonkin, a Specialist Physiotherapist and Associate Clinical
Lecturer at the University of Sydney’s Pain Management Research
Institute at Royal North Shore Hospital, has been awarded a grant from
the Australian Government Council for Australian-Arab Relations to work
with physiotherapists in the Gulf States in the management of chronic
pain due to Sickle Cell Disease. Tonkin’s project is to
train physiotherapists working in the Sultan Qaboos University Hospital
in Muscat, Oman in the use of cognitive-behavioral principles to help
patients manage the ongoing chronic musculoskeletal pain associated with
sickle cell disease.
Rarely seen in Australia, Sickle Cell Disease is common in Arabic
populations, both in their native countries and also in the UK and USA.
This project will introduce the principles of cognitive-behavioral pain
management to therapists in the Gulf States to complement their current
rehabilitation programs. It will assess the use of a
cognitive-behavioral rehabilitation program for the management of
persisting and recurrent pain in patients with sickle cell disease in
hospitals in the region, and assess the outcome of the program in their
home environment. The project also aims to enhance the
collaboration between therapists in different cultures and countries,
with a view to improving understanding and management of persisting pain
in different disease processes and cultural backgrounds. This
project also emphasizes the need for international collaboration to
recognize and manage persisting pain, and provide support where
applicable, a core goal of the IASP.
Dr. Murinson and the IASP Developing Countries Working Group
Dr. Beth Murinson, in conjunction with the Developing Countries
Working Group, presented a poster entitled "Pain education as a model
for global health impact: Goals and metrics that facilitate
change" at the Global Health Council meeting in Washington,
D.C.
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