Join Lee Vaughan in discussing One Thing he wants pain researchers or clinicians to know. He challenges clinicians to step outside of traditional practice: Longer appointments? Better awareness of resources… And genuine collaboration with people living with pain.
About Lee
Lee Vaughan has been challenged by chronic pain for a few decades, sharing some of his story with the world. His experience with his pain management programme taught him to live well with his pain. Although Pain remains a part of his life, it is no longer his life.
Transcript
Joshua Pate: What is one thing that you want pain researchers or clinicians to know?
Lee Vaughan: When I go to see my GP, and they have 10 min to see me. They can’t unlock what’s probably been going on for 30 years in my head. But if pain has persisted for that long, it’s: “how do we get the light bulbs to come on to maybe think, okay, how do I approach this differently? How do we approach this guy differently?”
And it’s about allowing people with chronic pain a safe space to not only think, but be heard. And I think that’s one thing, when I speak to people that live with chronic pain is that they don’t, they don’t feel heard. And I’ve got multiple experiences of sitting with a GP and staring at the back of his or her head. Yeah, I know you’re not listening. You’re typing away on your computer. And before, if I’ve had a chance to finish my sentence, there’s a prescription coming out of the printer. I don’t feel listened to. And I hear the term gaslighting a lot. If you can just spend a little bit of time with that patient, and just, just hear them. Just listen to them and give them space to do that. And I appreciate that’s difficult. So maybe the challenge is that clinicians need to, if they are restricted to 10 minutes, you know, have 10 minutes each week for 3 or 4 weeks, and allow that story to come out during that period. But also be aware of the signposting. Be aware of the education that is actually out there about the bio psycho social side of pain, because it is out there, and if I’ve challenged people, and I’ve said, have you heard of like organisations in the UK. Like ‘Flippin Pain’, like ‘Pain Concern’, like ‘Live Well With Pain’, and the amount of clinicians that come back, and they just they just shake their heads. We’ve never heard of this. Well, that’s your easy first step. The journey for me started in starting to live well with my pain. It started when clinicians made me curious. It made me want to understand the hows and the whys. And I went on that journey myself. The agency dropped into my lap, and I took responsibility for me developing my self-management tools.
And I often sort of say to people you know, please let the lived experience be part of the conversation, not just the topic, you know. At the end of the day pain is complex, and we are all different. When we live with pain. We are ultimately, we are the experts in our own condition and nobody understands pain and the psychological cycle of pain, the physical cycle of pain, like the people that live with it. And I do tire sometimes of seeing things online where groups of people have met to discuss “how do we engage people living with chronic pain into physical activity or movement programs?”. And I look at those meeting rooms and some I know and I can’t see one lived experience voice in that room. It’s, you know, if the tap is leaking, ring the plumber.
Josh: Hopefully, this will generate many more conversations that lead to then helpful next steps rather than just this cycle of people working in silos apart from each other. So thank you so much for your time.
Lee Vaughan: Brilliant cheers. Josh.