Table of Contents

Introduction. Organizational considerations. Assessment of the patient with acute pain. Pharmacology of opioids. Pharmacology of local anesthetic drugs. Non-opioid and adjuvant analgesic agents. Routes of systemic opioid administration. Patient-controlled analgesia. Epidural and intrathecal analgesia. Other regional and local analgesia. Non-pharmacological therapies. Acute neuropathic and persistent postacute pain. Non-surgical acute pain. More complex patients. Self-assessment questions.

About the Author

Stephan Schug is a medical graduate from the University of Cologne in Germany. At this University he also completed his MD by thesis in clinical pharmacology and his specialist training in anaesthesia, intensive care and pain medicine. After working for the University of Cologne as a Clinical Lecturer and Co-Director of its Cancer Pain Management Center, he moved to Auckland, New Zealand in 1989. In Auckland, he worked initially for Auckland Hospital as a Temporary Acting Specialist in Anaesthesia and Pain Medicine, before joining the Pharmacology Department of the University of Auckland as a Senior Lecturer and Head of its Section of Anaesthetics in 1991. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1994 and became full Professor and the first Chair of Anaesthesiology of the University of Auckland in 2000. Throughout his 12 years in Auckland, Stephan Schug had a clinical role as a staff specialist in anaesthesia and pain medicine at Auckland Hospital and the inaugural director of its pain service. When Stephan Schug moved to Perth in 2001, he maintained his linkage to the University of Auckland as an Honorary Professor of Anaesthesiology, while taking up his new role as Associate Professor, then Professor in the Pharmacology Unit of the School of Medicine and Pharmacology of the University of Western Australia. In 2006, he succeeded Professor Teik Oh, the Inaugural Chair of Anaesthesia at UWA, who retired. Stephan Schug's clinical role is Director of Pain.