Dr. Chang's Walk With Pain Management

What does the face of someone who's in chronic pain look like?

Dr. Hui Ming Chang, assistant professor of internal medicine at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston, and an assistant professor at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center's Division of Anesthesiology and Critical Care, has a video that she's happy to show you to answer this question. In it, a woman of about 70, who is dying of ovarian cancer, calmly looks at the camera, then thoughtfully answers, "You think to yourself, am I going to be able to sleep tonight? Is the pain going to be great? Treatment becomes the center of your life. It makes you feel totally out of control. It affects the very core of your life; it takes away your freedom."

Dr. Chang has been a faculty member at the UT-Houston Medical School since 1993. Her primary teaching emphasis is pain management, as well as end-of-life care. From 1993 to 1996 she was one of nine members of a committee that developed Practice Guidelines on Cancer Pain Management on behalf of the American Society of Anesthesiologists. In 1997, she organized the first elective course on end-of-life care and pain management. At the request of Dr. Mark Farnie, also in Internal Medicine, Dr. Chang started a monthly interactive teaching session on end-of-life care and pain management with senior medical students.

"How do we improve the quality of life? In the future, how do we ensure quality care for pain, and symptom control? These are some of the issues my colleagues and I are addressing," Dr. Chang says.

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