NEWSLETTER

MESSAGE FROM

THE CHAIRMAN

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Arun Kalava, M.D.

Welcome to the American Society For Postsurgical Pain (ASPSP)

With ever increasing surgical volumes and unabating opioid crisis, it is time to start taking action as physicians and scientists in addressing post-surgical pain. Better pain management and surgical outcomes are possible with better approaches and by furthering the science and availability of superior modalities to address post-surgical pain.

Traditional anesthesiology societies have focused on better delivery of anesthesia. Pain societies predominantly focus on the science and management of spine pain. Similarly, surgical societies have focused their efforts on the science and advancement of newer and lesser invasive techniques. What gets the least attention or gets left out is how to better manage post-surgical pain. American Society for Post-Surgical Pain (ASPSP) will change that forever.

This inaugural newsletter and the newsletters that will follow will have a robust, thought-provoking articles with exclusive focus on managing acute post-surgical pain in the hospital, in the community when it is sub-acute pain and in the medical offices when it turns out to be chronic in nature.

The most important recent event that could be a game changer for better managing and eliminating post-surgical pain was the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine being awarded to Professor David Julius and Professor Ardem Patapoutian for their research into temperature and pressuresensitive receptors, including the discovery of the transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1) receptor, which plays a critical role in pain.

Involvement in this society, I believe, is a must for anyone who is involved in managing a patient during and after a surgical procedure. All surgical specialties, anesthesiology, emergency medicine & physical therapy providers are welcome to share their opinions to discuss the possibilities of better surgical pain management and thus better surgical outcomes. I take this opportunity to welcome you to the American Society for Post-Surgical Pain (ASPSP) and to this one-of-a-kind society as we work on minimizing the burden and eliminating chronic post-surgical pain.