A significant gift to the Massachusetts General Hospital from Purdue Pharma L.P. of Stamford, Conn., will support a range of programs aimed at improving the understanding and management of the most common symptom of illness and injury - pain. The $3 million commitment from the Purdue Pharma Fund will be used to develop and expand opportunities for health care professionals to learn more about the wide range of tools and techniques for managing and treating pain. The grant also will be used to enhance the hospital's clinical research efforts focused on pain.

To recognize this contribution, the hospital's pain program will be named the MGH Purdue Pharma Pain Center.

"Purdue Pharma and the MGH share an unwavering commitment to finding ways to alleviate acute and chronic pain," says Jane Ballantyne, MD, an MGH anesthesiologist and director of the hospital's Pain Center. "Too many people today continue to experience pain despite the increasing number of pain relief measures available. This generous gift from Purdue will assist us in finding ways to clear up misconceptions and misunderstandings about pain and provide caregivers with the knowledge and resources they need to help patients who are suffering from pain, perhaps needlessly."

The educational initiatives that the Purdue gift will support at the MGH include development of courses that will offer educators in the health professions up-to-date information about pain along with the educational tools and effective teaching methods they need. Other efforts involve sponsoring continuing medical education courses for medical professionals and developing and distributing educational materials such as books, pamphlets, posters, slides and presentations.

Pain management is a relatively new field, according to Ballantyne. Dealing with pain as an entity itself rather than as just a symptom of an underlying disorder has become more of a focus in recent years as scientists have advanced th
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Contact: Michelle Marcella
617-724-2755
Massachusetts General Hospital
7-Feb-2002

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