CD-ROM for Clinical Staff Development

Abstract

This CD-ROM is a comprehensive instructional tool with an option for CEU credits. The product of a team effort, it takes a multidisciplinary approach to pain management and fulfills the promise and the goal of being a clinical staff development tool for healthcare professionals of all levels. This is one of the first educational tools of its kind and clearly fulfills the need for a broad-based multidisciplinary approach to pain assessment and management. The CD-ROM is a composite of different modules. It is unfortunate that there is little internal cohesiveness and appropriate transition between modules. The Patient Assessment module uses the example of a patient who is to undergo cardiac surgery. The patient interview is provided by a nurse who skillfully addresses the patient’s barriers for future pain management. This scenario is a peculiar choice, since the patient is not in pain and talking about future pain assessment is not a good example for illustrating the crucial steps in pain assessment of a patient in pain. It would have been much more instructive to have interviewed a patient with actual pain issues; the authors present three other patients elsewhere in the program who have ongoing chronic pain diagnoses. The second module deals with the anatomy and physiology of pain. It was apparently designed to provide a basis for the interpretation of symptoms and for the design of therapy. It follows the principles of mechanisms-based therapy, although that is not specifically stated. This concept is very current, but the information here is, for the most part, fragmentary and sometimes even incorrect. Some interpretations leap to conclusions, which are without factual basis. The third module attempts to provide a relatively comprehensive approach to the many aspects of opioid therapy. This module, however, does not adequately address many other pharmacological therapies, which are increasing in importance. Every module is accompanied by evaluation sessions, which consist of sets of questions and answers that provide additional educational information. This CD-ROM is easy to use, but those using older versions of CD-ROM drives on their computers might encounter difficulties in playing the video clips. Overall, this CD-ROM is a welcome addition to current educational materials in the arena of pain management and it is the reviewer’s hope that the authors would consider the constructive criticism provided here in their future efforts.