ASRA Pain Medicine Update

To My Colleagues on the Front Lines,

It is amazing how quickly a situation can shift.  Less than a month ago, I was planning my trip to the ASRA annual meeting with unbridled enthusiasm.  My wife and I were planning to travel to San Francisco without our children and attempt to put our footprints all over the city.  We had arranged to view Hamilton and had managed to secure fantastic seats.  The ASRA News was planning to provide a special edition that would provide some novel “How I do it” articles and would have been made available in print format to all meeting attendees.  These types of articles are historically our most popular offerings and attempt to provide practical advice from physician colleagues working to provide patient care.  

I hope you find this special edition a welcome distraction from the reality that we are all facing. 

As of this writing, we are now in a profoundly different situation than what existed a short time ago. Professional meetings are cancelled, travel has been brought to a standstill, schools are closed, our email inboxes are flooded with COVID communications, news outlets are a source of constant updates on the number of dead and dying, hospitals are filling/full and our patients and colleagues are falling ill and dying.  Added to this, healthcare providers have been asked to leap into a battle of unprecedented proportion without the tools they need to care for patients or themselves.   

Out of this darkness, there have been glimmers of hope that have emerged.  Communities have bonded together to assist the vulnerable, cheered at a distance for those in isolation, and shared precious resources.  Healthcare providers have managed to supply astounding ingenuity to address the medical management of our patients and equipment shortages. 

Only time will tell what our situation will be in a week, month or year.  However, I hope you find this special edition a welcome distraction from the reality that we are all facing. 

Please, stay safe,

Kris