ON PAIN: Pandemic Forces Health Care to Reconsider Pain’s ‘Elective’ Status

When much of the country shut down in March 2020, an overwhelming majority of pain medicine practitioners did, too. For good reason, said Johnathan H. Goree, MD, an assistant professor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, in Little Rock, told Pain Medicine News. However, closures cut many patients off from care, specifically those who were being managed with interventional procedures. This estrangement from care made many in the field question pain’s labeling as