PainCare 360 Program at BC Children’s Hospital (BCCH), in collaboration with Pain BC and Child Health BC hosted the 4^th Pediatric Pain Symposium on November 16, 2023. Over 160 people registered for the CME accredited hybrid format event; the majority of whom attended the event in-person. The attendees included patients, families, community-based health care providers, BCCH staff, and Elder Gerry Oldman.

Structure of the Event & Highlights

The day featured interactive, practical, and evidence-informed learning formats on how to approach pain from the perspective of mind and body as one. Elder Gerry Oldman opened the event, along with engaging the audience on how to breath well. The learning activities comprised a patient panel, a clinical case presentation, two health care providers/program leadership’s panels, and strategies on staying well and working well as health care providers. The day also included four 90 minutes long workshops:

(1) Hypnosis (a mind-body technique)

(2) Magic Glove (a mind-body technique)

(3) Mindfulness (a mind-body technique)

(4) Communication: How to Have Conversations About the Mind-Body

The overarching objective of the mind-body techniques’ workshops was to learn non-pharmacological approaches to pain care. The communication workshop’s overall objective was to learn how to hold conversations with patients and families about the mind-body connection.

Views On The Mindfulness Workshop

Meaningful feedback was received from diverse attendees:

• The workshop achieved its learning objective; endorsed responses ranged from “satisfactory” to “exceptional”.
• All respondents agreed that the information shared was of relevance to their practice.  
• The overall rating for the Mindfulness workshop ranged from “satisfactory” to “exceptional”; with the latter response option accounting for three quarters of the responses.

Learning Resources & Supports

The learning event provided an opportunity to share resources developed by Kelty Mental Health and the Center of Mindfulness. For instance, all in-person attendees received Breathr app cards.  

Resources (to enhance your learning on pain and comfort) developed by PainCare 360 and other partners are accessible at this link. For any other additional information on pain and comfort supports at BCCH, contact us at childkind@cw.bc.ca.

The image above is a word cloud of some common expressions of emotions as bodily felt sensations. The graphic is from Dr. Andrea Chapman and Dr. Amrit Dhariwal’s presentation entitled “Mind and Body Together: Why It Matters”.