Keywords
Pain Perception
Acute pain
Pain Management
Pain Education
How to Cite
Abstract
Introduction: Pain is the main reason for consultation in emergency care in the world. Pain management is often inadequate, and patients are discharged with moderate to severe pain. Although medical schools teach content around pain management during training, it does not seem to be enough, in part due to the poor understanding of the approach that physicians perform on it in emergency services. Objective: To understand the meaning that general practitioners have about the management of acute pain in the emergency services of high-complexity hospitals. Methods: Qualitative study that used grounded theory. A total of 15 in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with an equal number of physicians with work experience in emergency departments at high-complexity hospitals in Medellín. The analysis of the information was carried out by means of the open, axial, and selective coding typical of the method. Results: The meaning of pain management includes the recognition of one’s own vulnerability in the other’s pain, the absence of intentional teaching of empathy and compassion, the fragmentation and disarticulation of pain treatment by the Flexnerian teaching model and the contradiction between the subjective nature of pain and the positivist clinical training paradigm. Conclusions: Pain management is affected by evident conflicts with the prevailing biomedical model, shortcomings in skills such as empathy, compassion, and assertive communication, and the doctor’s difficulty in accepting his vulnerability and fear of death.
References
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