Recommended Reading
Pain is a subject that sparks debate in almost endless ways. From the best approach to treatment, to service delivery, to the very nature of pain itself and to what it says about human’s inherent capacity to care and be compassionate and kind. Many such debates are the focus of our meetings. On this page, we provide some further resources and literature to inform, interest and inspire. Much of this material has come from recommendations by members and used to be circulated by e-mail. We hope that these links will be a useful addition to the website.
Please note that inclusion of an item on this page does not represent endorsement by the British Pain Society or the Philosophy & Ethics SIG; nor do the views expressed necessarily represent those of the Society or SIG.
Items are listed in no particular order. We welcome new contributions that will be of interest to the SIG's membership. Please contact Matthew Jay if you have something.
Finally, all items are hosted by third parties and links will open to third party websites in new windows. While we cannot therefore guarantee the continued availability of any particular item, please e-mail Matthew Jay if you find that any of the links are broken and we will do our best to update them.
Contents |
Burnout
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Author |
Title |
Link (opens in new window) |
| Clare Gerada |
For doctors with mental illness, ‘help me’ can be the hardest words |
Overdiagnosis and overtreatment
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Author |
Title |
Link (opens in new window) |
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Charles E Rosenberg |
The Tyranny of Diagnosis: Specific Entities and Individual Experience |
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Bernard Lown |
Social Responsibility of Physicians (Essay 29) |
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Iona Heath |
Role of fear in overdiagnosis and overtreatmemt |
The BMJ (paywall) |
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Doctor Skeptic |
Don’t just do something, stand there |
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Jerome R Hoffman and Hemal K Kanzaria |
Intolerance of error and culture of blame drive medical excess |
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Healthcare delivery and funding
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Author |
Title |
Link (opens in new window) |
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Mark Swerdlow |
The early development of pain relief clinics in the UK |
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Enrico Coiera |
Social networks, social media, and social diseases |
The BMJ (paywall) |
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Steve Hewlett |
My cancer diary: ‘There’s a new drug, but the NHS won’t pay. Private cost? £15,624 a month!’ |
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| Mariam Alexander | Opioids don't work for chronic pain. So why do we still prescribe them? | The Guardian |
Kindness, culture and compassion
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Author |
Title |
Link (opens in new window) |
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Milton Cohen, John Quintner, David Buchanan, Mandy Nielson and Lynette Guy |
Stigmatization of Patients with Chronic Pain: The Extinction of Empathy |
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Jim Huddy |
A journey into the humanitarian side of practice |
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Andrew Solomon |
Literature about medicine may be all that can save us |
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Iona Heath |
How medicine has exploited rationality at the expense of humanity |
The BMJ (video of speech by Iona Heath available but text of article is behind a paywall) |
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David Loxterkamp |
Humanism in the time of metrics |
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Jonathan Tomlinson |
How doctors respond to chronic pain |
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Jonathan Tomlinson |
Do doctors need to be kind? |
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John Launer |
On kindness |
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Penny Campling |
Culture, Kinship and Intelligent Kindness |
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| Paul Cosford | Choice in end of life care | Royal Society of Medicine |
The neurobiology of pain, the placebo effect and the doctor-patient relationship
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Author |
Title |
Link (opens in new window) |
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Fabrizio Bendetti |
Placebo and the new physiology of the doctor-patient relationship |
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Larry Dossey |
Telecebo: beyond placebo to an expanded concept of healing |
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Fabrizio Benedetti |
The placebo response: science versus ethics and the vulnerability of the patient |
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Mark Sullivan and Stuart Derbyshire |
Is there a purely biological core to pain experience? |
Pain (paywall) |
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G Lorimer Moseley and Johan WS Vlaeyen |
Beyond nociception: the imprecision hypothesis of chronic pain |
Pain (paywall) |
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Roland Griffiths |
Psilocybin: a journey beyond the fear of death? |
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Peter Croft |
Picking targets in the fog: the pluses and minuses of defining chronic widespread pain |
Pain (paywall) |
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Iain McGilchrist |
Half a brain (TED Talk) |
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| Giulio Ongaro and Ted Kaptchuk Jr |
Symptom perception, placebo effects, and the Bayesian brain |
Pain (open access) |
| David Borsook, Andrew M Youssef, Laura Simons, Igor Elman and Christopher Eccleston | When pain gets stuck: the evolution of pain chronification and treatment resistance | Pain (paywall) |
| Mark Kargela and Mick Thacker | Interview with Mick Thacker on the predicting processing model of pain | Modern Pain Care and video available through Facebook |
| Phoebe Friesen |
Mesmer, the placebo effect, and the efficacy paradox: lessons for evidence based medicine and complementary and alternative medicine |
Critical Public Health |
Books
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Author |
Title |
Link (opens in new window) |
|
Various (edited by Peter Wemyss-Gorman) |
Pain, Suffering and Healing: Insights and Understanding |
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Judy Foreman |
A Nation In Pain |
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Joanna Bourke |
The Story of Pain: From Prayer to Painkillers |
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David Biro |
Listening to Pain: Finding Words, Compassion and Relif |
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Bernard Lown |
The Lost Art of Healing: Practicing Compassion in Medicine | Penguin Random House |
| Wayne Jonas and Cindy Crawford |
Healing, Intention and Energy Medicine |
Elsevier |
Pain News articles
British Pain Society members also have access to Pain News, a quarterly newsletter. A number of articles that arise from our meetings are published in Pain News from time-to-time so members are encouraged to view back copies to find these.
Meeting transcripts
Many of these themes are also the focus of discussion at our annual meetings. You can find complete transcripts of past meetings to download for free on the SIG's main page.