What is Pain Medicine?
疼痛医学是关于疼痛的医学专业学科。疼痛医学涵盖的领域包括疼痛的生理和心理研究，预防，临床评估和治疗。
疼痛医学是一门新兴的医学专科。虽然零散的疼痛治疗可以追溯得非常久远，作为一门为医学界广泛承认的专科，疼痛医学大约自七十年代至八十年代初渐趋成形。与内，外，妇，儿等传统学科相比，疼痛医学是相对年轻的学科。传统学科往往注重延续生命，增加生命的数量值，而新兴的疼痛医学则相对注重于提高生活质量和改善生命左功能。
近三十年来人才与技术的专业化发展，使疼痛学科从医学领域中独立出来成为一门新兴学科。特别是在微创介入治疗方面，疼痛医学已经取得了长足的发展，推动了整个疼痛诊疗体系的日趋成熟，并在解除患者疾苦中发挥着传统学科所不能及的作用。目前疼痛医学已经可以在分科林立的医学王国与有上百年传统的经典专业分庭抗礼。在发达国家，有些医疗机构疼痛科已经开始形成未来亚学科发展优势。因此，有理由预测，疼痛医学在未来的几十年内将得到更快的发展，成为医学领域的一支主力。
Pain Medicine is a specialized branch of medicine which deals with pain, its diagnosis and its treatment. The fields covered by Pain Medicine include physiological and psychological studies on pain, prevention of pain, clinical evaluation of pain, and treatment for pain. Pain Medicine is a new and evolving medical specialty. Though sporadic pain treatments could be traced to prehistoric periods, as a legitimate specialty recognized in the medical world, the formation of Pain Medicine took more than a decade, in 1970s and 1980s. Comparing to Internal Medicine, Surgery, Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Pediatrics, Pain Medicine is a relatively young field. While traditional medical specialties focused mostly on extending the length, or quantity, of life, the evolving Pain Medicine pays much attention to improve the functional quality of human life. The advancement of professional training and techniques in the past 3 decades led to the establishment of Pain Medicine as a specialized medical field. The techniques of minimally invasive intervention provided momentum to the maturation of the diagnostic and therapeutic systems. At the same time Pain Medicine offered new resolution, which was beyond reach with traditional approach, to chronic pain symptoms. At present time Pain Medicine has started to compete against some traditional medical branches. In some developed countries, even subspecialties of Pain Medicine have started to debut. One can therefore predict, with reasonable certainty, that Pain Medicine will have even faster development in the next decades, and will finally become an anchor field of medical care.
