Pain Medicine for the FRCA

The curriculum asks us to be able to assess and manage 'acute pain in all types of surgery' and 'acute non-surgical pain', i.e. acute pain of any description.

Chronic pain, cancer pain, neuropathic pain and pain in a host of demographic subgroups (e.g. infants, elderly) all make the curriculum cut too.

There's a guaranteed CRQ on pain, and the topic features heavily in the MTF/SBA too, thus justifying a degree of time spent learning the below:

• Assessment of pain
• Pain conditions
• Analgesia
• Paediatric pain

Relevant Primary FRCA Sections include:

• Physiology of pain
• Pharmacology of analgesics