What Would Bonica Say? A Word on the DVPRS Validation Study

Abstract

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have challenged pain medicine and health care like no previous conflict. Saving lives from injuries that would previously been deemed unsalvageable is now tempered by the challenges of restoring to survivors a meaningful and productive life ⇓. Tragically, we are failing, and everyday, a soldier commits suicide ⇓ and every other day unintentionally dies from a prescription opioid overdose ⇓. These deaths are added to the long list of warriors who have sacrificed their life in our defense, while leaving behind survivors who continue to burden the Military and Veteran Health Care programs, now staggering at a cost of $51 billion ⇓. This is not sustainable, and something needs to be done. Collaboration in pain management between the Veteran Health Administration (VHA) and the Department of Defense (DoD) began soon after the onset of the current wars. The 2009 VHA Pain Management Directive and the Defense Veterans Center for Integrated Pain Management led by the authors Drs. …