To grow and strengthen the CIPM workforce, particularly in underserved communities, AACIPM, in collaboration with Integrative Medicine for the Underserved and the University of Vermont, provided 30 diverse practitioners with scholarships to attend The UVM Integrative Health’s second integrative pain management conference held on May 7th. Wayne Jonas, MD gave an inspiring keynote examining How Healing Works. Plenaries included Helene Langevin, MD, Director of the NIH’s National Center of Complementary and Integrative Health, sharing exciting research progress, and Josh Plavin, MD, MPH, MBA, Medical Director at BC/BS of VT together with Jon Porter, MD, Medical Director of the VT Comprehensive Pain Program discussing lessons learned from their innovative payor/provider partnership at UVM. Numerous breakout sessions provided quality, practical information. The final plenary session explored the national landscape of comprehensive integrative pain management and included AACIPM’s Amy Goldstein, MSW, Christine Goertz, DC, PhD, Duke University, and Samantha Simmons, MPH, Whole Health in the States initiative. You can view Amy’s slides here.
AACIPM was thrilled to collaborate with IM4US and UVM to provide scholarships to providers caring for the underserved, who would have been unable to attend without this support. So far, 100% of survey responses (from scholarship recipients) have said that they gained new tools and insights from the conference, such as: how to ask better questions during initial assessments; the need to give more time for interventions to work with each progression; the need to rest patients with high levels of inflammation before initiating an exercise program; insight into herbs, food, and supplements; information about the various types of providers and how/when to refer; and, the importance of what the patient finds meaningful. A more detailed survey summary will be forthcoming. To learn more about UVM’s recent conference, see their post-conference highlights.