The Pain Science Division of the Canadian Physiotherapy Association will be hosting its third Pain Unconference next month. It’s billed as “an interactive day of keynote speakers, small-group discussion, and clinical pearls… for rehabilitation professional interested in managing pain”.(1)
What exactly is an UnConference? It’s an event largely run by the attendees, who submit ideas for agenda items and topics in advance. Rather than the passive presentation experience of a conference setting, the focus is on moderated discussions and workshops.
The theme of this year’s Unconference is “Managing persistent pain through communication, coaching, and therapeutic alliance”.(1) Along with two keynote speakers this year, guests will include patients:
Get a patient’s perspective on living with pain: Individuals with persistent pain will be in attendance and participating in all aspects of our event, providing unique insight into their pain experience”.(1)
I’ll be one of them! I don’t know whether being a patient representative at an UnConference will make me an UnPatient for the day, but I’ll let you know ‘-) The event will take place on September 28, in just a few weeks.
In the meantime, one of my patient advocacy friends – who won’t be participating in this UnConference – challenged me to write a 150-word patient bio; the type of introductory biographical summary provided for keynote speakers on the websites of these types of events.
This was much more difficult than I’d expected! Trying to explain in 150 words which portions of my experience might be of interest to healthcare professionals who attend pain conferences. Or UnConferences, in this case. At least I was able to use the acronym for my rare chronic pain condition; CRPS for Complex Regional Pain Syndrome.
One of the keynote speakers at the 2019 UnConference is a US military officer, so I decided to include my own military experience.
Here’s what I came up with:
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Sandra Woods, CIPP/C, M.Bioethics, BA Phil (Ethics)
Sandra has worked in healthcare for over 20 years, primarily in bioethics. She managed a research ethics board, and was part of an epidemiology team at the CHUM Research Centre. Her industry experience includes healthcare philanthropy and patient privacy protection.
She spent 5 years in the Canadian Air Force reserve, specializing in wilderness survival. Sandra was a Major at the Regional Officer-Instructor School, training other officers, while Captain as deputy commanding officer of her squadron.
In May 2016 Sandra was diagnosed with CRPS, following an earlier Colles’ fracture. She now applies her bioethics and research knowledge to advocating for chronic pain patients, often one-on-one.
Her CRPS and chronic pain awareness-raising focuses on HCPs.
Sandra has presented to medical students through the MUHC’s Alan Edwards Pain Management Unit (AEPMU), and to medical residents. She was a Patient Partner & Twitter Team member for the 2018 Canadian Pain Society conference.
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I managed to meet my friend’s challenge, with two words to spare; this brief bio includes only 148 words ‘-)
Stay tuned for International Pain Awareness Month, starting September 1st. I’ll be posting some of my awareness-raising images over on Instagram [@woods_lecourt] and Twitter [@SandraWoodsMtl], so will share a few here as well – for those of you who avoid social media platforms.
As always, thanks for reading! I wish you a long weekend filled with moments of joy and laughter, a Happy Labour Day weekend ‘-)
Reference:
Canadian Physiotherapy Association, Pain Science Division. 3rd Pain Unconference. Online. Accessed 01 Sep 2019: https://www.painunconference.com/
and
https://physiotherapy.ca/3rd-annual-pain-unconference