Living without pain depends on you - it depends on everyone

In October 2006, I had an extraordinary opportunity: The Pain & Policies Study Group (PPS3) of the University of Wisconsin chose eight people, including me, to develop a fellowship aimed to improve access to opioids. This cohort comprised people from across the world including: Argentina, Colombia, Nigeria, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Vietnam and Panama. Over two years, we received specialized training from a multidisciplinary group of high-level experts. In the case of Panama it was extended for three more years. After training, each fellow had to make a diagnosis of the barriers that prevented access to opioids in their countries and propose and implement an action plan to improve the situation. In Panama, it was necessary to change the rules and provide education on pain management. At that time, the overail per capita morphine mean was 5.8 mg and Panama's was 0.51. This is one of the indicators that reflect how close each country is to having the medicine considered by the World Health Organization (WHO) as essential for pain relief