Join Pete Moore discussing the One Thing he wants people challenged by pain to know about. Explore the current state of pain science research and clinical practice in this straight-to-the-point interview with Pete.
About Pete Moore
Pete is a speaker, educator, and advocate for pain self-management. In 2018 Pete recognised there was a need to develop more online pain self-management workshops, for both patients and healthcare professionals, to enhance their pain self-management skills. Pete has since written several patient/health care professional pain self-management books including the Pain Toolkit.
Transcript
Thanks for joining us Pete. So, what’s the one thing you want people challenged by pain to know.
Listen, I’m not an academic, though, one bit, you know, I’m just like a normal bloke in the street. And the thing is, what the [pain self-management] programme gave me was the tools and skills, and more importantly, the confidence to manage my pain myself. Really what I always tell people if they got one challenge, really is to find a pain management programme, or a pain management coach, or a healthcare professional, who is experienced in pain self-management. Because I think it isn’t, just don’t take it personal, but there’s a lot of healthcare professionals out there saying they’re doing pain management, but their version of pain management ain’t what I learned from years ago.
But it’s about I think, for the person living with pain, they got to team up with the right person, who’s got that knowledge to coach them along. I think a lot of people as well, will be well what do you mean by that. And I always try and give the example of when people learn to drive, you know. You’re looking around for someone who’s a good instructor.
There’s one thing I saw on Twitter a little while back, you called it supported active self management. And the emphasis was, like you’re just saying now that coaching and support so how critical do you think that was? And when did you become aware that was critical?
But what I was finding was that a lot of people when their healthcare professional is saying, you need to learn to self-manage, a lot of people will, I agree with it now that, a lot of people with pain were thinking that they’re being cut loose, you know, I will I’ve done all I can, you know, so using it putting that word in supported. It’s a sort of reinforces that.
Listen, self-management to me has always been about teamwork. It’s not about :you got to go and do your own thing”. It’s about working with your healthcare team. Your circle of support – that could be your friends, family, work colleagues, etc.
I’m still banging a drum to get all medical schools really to start thinking about self-management. Even teaching in schools, because the chances are that for young kids in school: they’re going to get some sort of long term condition as they as they go through life. So if they’ve got those skills already, and the other good bit about teaching it in schools to say something really interesting, that, if you’re teaching it in schools, it will be just like how the recycling revolution started. What they did, they started teaching in schools, they then went home and talked their parents. And I’m thinking if you we could do the same thing with supported management: learn it in schools, they go home and teach their relatives and whatnot.
That’s brilliant. Well, thank you so much for your time. Pete, we really appreciate it.
Look after everybody down there in down-under-land, I love you and I’m coming back soon.