Speakers
Dr. Steven WONG
Consultant
Queen Elizabeth Hospital
Hong Kong
Dr Steven Wong is the Consultant Anaesthesiologist of the Department of Anaesthesiology and Operating Theatre Services, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Hong Kong. Dr Wong, graduated from the University of Hong Kong, has attained Anaesthesia Fellowships of the Hong Kong College of Anaesthesiologists and the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists. He has obtained the Diploma in Pain Management and Fellowship in Pain Medicine of the Hong Kong College of Anaesthesiologists, as well as Fellowship in Pain Medicine of the Faculty of Pain Medicine of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists. His main clinical interest lies in management of pain and in particular interventional pain management. He is the Head of the Pain Management Team at Queen Elizabeth Hospital. He is the Past President of the Society of Anaesthetists of Hong Kong and currently the President of the Hong Kong Pain Society.
Western Medicine, based on scientific knowledge, research and evidence, has dominated the world nowadays as the “Mainstream Medicine”. Other practices of medicine, including a wide range of ancient or traditional medical practices, are referred to as “Non-mainstream Medicine”. “Non-mainstream” medical therapies are usually classified into two categories, namely “Complementary” and “Alternative” medicine. “Complementary” medicine refers to those medical therapies that are used “together with” Western Medicine while “Alternative” medicine refers to those practices that are used “instead of” Western Medicine.
Since the turn of the Century, in view of the increasingly ageing population with expected multiple co-morbidities, there has been a growing interest in the promotion of health and wellness instead of merely treatment of diseases. While Western medicine is largely focused on the treatment of diseases, a lot of complementary and alternative healthcare and medical therapies target at improving health e.g. dietary supplement, and reducing stress e.g. yoga and meditation. It has given birth to a new approach of incorporating complementary medical therapies into Western Medicine, known as “Integrative Medicine”.
Pain has always been one of the most common reasons to seek medical treatment. While Western Medicine offers potent analgesics and interventional pain procedures for the treatment of acute and chronic pain, a lot of patients with chronic pain still suffer from inadequate pain control. Abuse and overuse of opioid analgesics also run the risks of dependence and addiction, resulting in the phenomenon of opioid crisis in a number of developed countries. Thus there is a need to explore non-opioid alternative pain therapies and integrative medicine approach to pain management has becoming more and more popular in the recent decade.
I will discuss the effectiveness of an integrative approach to pain management and its application in the local perspective.
