Canada’s current opioid crisis, and efforts to curb it, may be contributing to inadequate cancer pain management.
 
This was the core takeaway of the first step in a ground-breaking national initiative to highlight the impact of the opioid crisis on cancer pain management and develop a research agenda investigating the crisis and ways to optimize pain management across the disease continuum and the lifespan.

The first week of November is the Pain Awareness Week across Canada. Did you know that 20% of the population lives with chronic pain? No wonder the Federal Minister of Health has created a Canadian Pain Task Force! Several activities will be offered during the next week. Check out some of these activities on the Canadian Pain Society website.

In the wake of the creation of the Canadian Pain Task Force, the first report was produced in June 2019. The conclusions are: 1 / limited access to services for people living with pain; 2 / stigma and undue suffering. The report concludes: "Canadians living with pain and their loved ones simply deserve better."

To access the first report, click HERE

The Honorable Minister Petitpas-Taylor is calling for the creation of a national pain task force to gather more information on the prevention, treatment and management of chronic pain affecting 20% of the Canadian population. The announcement was made at the 40th Scientific Conference of the Canadian Pain Society. A first report highlighting the state of affairs in this sector should be available by the summer of 2019.

Dr. Serge Marchand, professor at the Department of Surgery - Service of Neurosurgery at the Université de Sherbrooke for 15 years, member of the Pain Network Executive Committee from 2015 to 2017, then appointed as scientific director for the Quebec Health Research Fund from 2017 to 2019. In 2019, he is appointed as vice-president of scientific affairs at Genome Quebec, in order to promote interdisciplinary and intersectoral collaboration in the field of genomics.

Congratulations to Serge Marchand for his nomination as Scientific Director of the Fonds de recherche du Québec - Santé, annonced today by government of Québec. Serge Marchand is full Professor at Université Sherbrooke, and a researcher affiliated to the Centre de recherche du Centre hospitalier universitaire de Sherbrooke (CHUS).  He works in a group on Pain and Inflammation, an axis he has created and developed himself over the last few years.  His work have shed light on the neurophysiological mechanisms responsible for the development and persistence of chronic pain.