Research Forum Announcement

The Research Committee, in conjunction with the Research Fellowship Program, will hold the next monthly statewide Department of Family Medicine Research Forum on Tuesday, September 6 from 12:30 - 1:30 p.m. in the Mendota Conference Room on the third floor of Alumni Hall.

Marlon Mundt, MA, MS will present findings from the Michael Fleming, MD, MPH research team's Chronic Pain grant on "Economic Impact of Chronic Pain in a Primary Care Population." This forum has been rescheduled from July.

Chronic pain is a devastating health problem which affects as many as 25 million Americans. Its consequences, both in terms of direct medical care costs and the indirect costs of addiction and legal problems, alcoholism and motor vehicle crashes, reduced employment and public assistance, are immense. Increasingly, primary care physicians are being asked to treat and manage patients with chronic pain.

This presentation will provide a comprehensive summary of the economic costs of chronic pain in a sample of 1009 primary care patients recruited from primary care clinics in Wisconsin. It will compare cost data for patients receiving regular narcotic therapy for their pain to those receiving intermittent or no narcotics. By elucidating the components of the cost of chronic pain, we may be better equipped to
determine if interventions aimed at addressing chronic pain have a positive economic impact on the patient and society.

Each research forum has a major research presentation with an open discussion following each session. This forum is planned as an exchange of ideas that could be based on a completed research project or a discussion at the idea stage of a research topic. The presentations will be videoconferenced statewide. All DFM faculty, residents, fellows and staff are invited to attend and participate in the discussion. Faculty and staff statewide are invited to present their research.

All talks are on the first Tuesday of the month from 12:30 - 1:30 p.m. in the Mendota Conference Room, 1100 Delaplaine Ct. and can be viewed via videoconference. If you would like a forum taped for future viewing, please notify Mary Beth Plane, PhD or June Daws.

The August forum featured Beth Potter, MD discussing "The Family Physicians Inquiries Network (FPIN)" on Tuesday, August 2, 2005. A CD copy of that presentation is available.

Please contact June Daws at June.daws@fammed.wisc.edu or Mary Beth
Plane, PhD at mbplane@fammed.wisc.edu 608-263-5846 for further information
about how to present your research at the forum.