ABSTRACT
Pain management in the field has been considered an unrealistic luxury. Successful pain management in the field requires multimodal analgesic therapy to reduce the unwanted side effects of each individual medication. Effective acute pain management can significantly enhance the effectiveness of the healthcare response during war or disaster. Pain management strategies and technologies were inadequate during the general’s transport and at the field hospital. Morphine and other opioid drugs have played a major role in austere environment pain management ever since, particularly in the military. The ability to provide effective pain management must be integral to deployable facility design and equipment selection for any austere environment medical mission. Since 1985, efforts to improve perioperative pain management have centered on the development of acute pain service teams of healthcare professionals, usually directed by an anesthesiologist, who are organized and committed to the management of acute postsurgical pain.
