Back in June I spent almost a week as a volunteer Patient Partner at the North American Pain School (NAPS), held each year in Montebello QC.
This annual educational event, for early-career pain researchers, features talks and workshops with leading experts in pain management and research – and much more.
The twenty-nine partipants this year were trainees from universities across North America, many of whom had studied or traveled from further afield, yet by the end of NAPS many of us had forged likely life-long friendships… and undoubtedly formed a number of future research collaborations!
It was an honour and privilege to attend NAPS as a Patient Partner, to share some of what it means to live with constant and severe pain from CRPS (one of my two rare diseases) with the up-and-coming generation of pain experts, and to get to hear from current world leaders in pain research.
While at NAPS, I also had the pleasure of being interviewed by one of the trainees from the best university in my home-town (im my view) – Shirin Sadighparvar from McGill University.
That interview was published yesterday, with thanks to Shirin and to Neil Andrews who led the “Science Communicators Program” at NAPS.
“Journeying through CRPS with Art: A Conversation with Sandra Woods”, by Shirin Sadighparvar, for the North American Pain School, ePublished 10 Oct 2025:
https://northamericanpainschool.com/journeying-through-crps-with-art-a-conversation-with-sandra-woods/
