Collage of knee pain, brain and neurons represent the advanced pain care at the UC Davis Pain Relief Center.

Center for Advancing Pain Relief

Comprehensive Pain Management Solutions

Chronic pain: millions living with pain in the U.S.

Sheila, a retired teacher, beat cancer, but the treatment left her with unbearable pain. Jackie, a sixth-grader, has lingering pain from a fractured leg that failed to heal. And Greg, a contractor, suffers daily back pain from a herniated disc. They are among the millions who experience acute or chronic pain every year. Yet pain remains under-researched, and the fragmentation of pain education, research, clinical care and policy impairs our understanding and effective treatment of pain. Rather than addressing the source of pain, it is common practice to prescribe painkillers, contributing to America’s prescription drug abuse epidemic. UC Davis, with this Big Idea, will help provide solutions to relieve pain without causing more of it.

 

Advanced pain care for the UC Davis pain relief center for chronic pain management and solving opioid crisis.

 

Pain relief center: a hub for education, research and integrative care

UC Davis has a vision to synergize efforts across the university to combat the pain management crisis by expanding the Center for Advancing Pain Relief (CAPR) to create a first-of-its-kind hub for education, research, clinical care and policy. CAPR will develop new standards for educating clinicians across all health professions. It will produce replicable programs that train students and retrain health professionals to identify and understand pain and deliver safe, effective and affordable care. Harnessing UC Davis’ wealth of interprofessional expertise—from medicine, nursing, veterinary medicine, engineering and law to sociology and communications—we will conduct cutting-edge research and advance transformative treatments. CAPR will unite faculty researchers, educators and clinicians with policymakers to develop personalized, integrated and comprehensive pain management therapies, reach national consensus and provide policy guidance for California and beyond. Together, we can dramatically impact the quality of life for pain sufferers.

Accelerate solutions for transforming pain care

UC Davis is looking to partner with donors, corporations and foundations to accomplish the following:
  • Create training programs to advance interdisciplinary pain education in human and veterinary health
  • Accelerate the development of prevention strategies and groundbreaking treatments with start-up funding for pilot studies
  • Endow 11 faculty positions to transform pain care
  • Establish scholarships and fellowships to prepare the next generation of health professionals
  • Create a state-of-the-art facility for providing pain relief and training tomorrow’s well-educated clinicians

 

By creating a network of faculty researchers, educators, clinicians and policymakers, UC Davis will further understanding about this important health issue, provide effective treatment and dramatically improve the quality of life for individuals living with pain...