ABSTRACT
Allopathic medicine is the health care practice combating disease through the use of treatments producing effects different from those produced by the disease, producing a second condition that is antagonistic to the first (Arizona Medical Board, 2004). Allopathic physicians, as doctors of medicine (M.D.s), routinely do physical examinations to be able to diagnose, prevent, and treat illnesses, injuries, and other disorders, often using highly technical procedures. Allopathic physicians, as medical doctors, are not just one homogeneous group that provides the same services to all patients, but a large group of extensively educated practitioners who have initially trained in the common areas of medical science and primary medical specialties before pursuing different specialty areas of interest. Physicians working in pain management/medicine serve as valuable members of treatment teams providing multidisciplinary care for those in pain and work to prevent, remove, or control pain through the provision of unique, often highly specialized skills and therapeutics. This chapter describes for non-allopathic pain practitioners the background and training of allopathic physicians. It identifies the specialty implications for managing pain and the range of pain-related services provided by these different types of practitioners.
