CHRONIC PAIN

The pain module has always been managed as 20 sessions of pain training of which 10 need to be chronic pain, and we organise a week for you to achieve this. The week is rota’d into your on-call shifts in advance to ensure you have 5 consecutive days and no weekend either side. Only 1 trainee can be accommodated per week. We will try to accommodate requests for a pain week at NBT, but it cannot be guaranteed. Opportunities to undertake pain training are available at other Trusts in region.

 

What you do that week will be organised by Dr Kat Ng and if you have done any pain elsewhere, your week can be adapted to take that into account. Please contact Dr Ng a couple of weeks prior to your pain week. Essentially, you will be with the pain consultants Monday-Friday 09:00-17:00. If all your pain has been signed off and you do not need to go, please let us know and you will have a theatre week instead.

​

Southmead pain clinic is based in Gloucester House on the left shortly after entering the Dorian Road entrance. Depending on who is on reception, the door may not be open until 0830 at the earliest and access is only by card (separate from Brunel). To gain entry, if the door is locked, call 0117 4147379. That is the number of the nurses’ office and also for any queries about the clinic. The pain clinic nurses are the most useful source of information.

​

The Pain Consultants are:-

• Gaurav Chhabra (Regional Pain Advisor for Severn)

• Sarah Love-Jones (Pain Clinic Lead)

• Murli Krishna

• Kat Ng (Pain Faculty Tutor and Supervisor for HaLO sign off)

• Shelley Barnes

 

We expect you to turn up in clothes not scrubs

 

Morning clinics start at 9am although we are there earlier. Afternoon clinics start at 1.30. Clinics include general pain, joint pain-neurosurgical, physio, psychology, acupuncture and Qutenza. We provide pain interventions such as injections, radiofrequency treatment and spinal cord stimulation in Brunel theatre sessions and ultrasound guided pain procedures in both Gloucester House and theatres. Theatre session locations are on CLW but are usually in L2 pacing room and L3 theatres. We rarely have patients with cancer pain as these are mostly dealt with by palliative care.

​

Please touch base with Dr Ng on Monday when you arrive and you will be given your week’s schedule. Emphasis should be placed on completing curriculum competencies and you should be able to discuss management of pain conditions including those mentioned above. You are not expected to see patients or perform procedures unsupervised but if you are interested and enthusiastic you will get to be involved more. Please remember to get your WBPAs done while you are actually there. It is much easier than finding the pain consultants at ARCP time from another hospital.