Healthcare professionals need to be able to manage pain competently and effectively. A variety of reviews of pain knowledge among healthcare professionals report low education and insufficient qualifications. The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) published the first edition of a Core Curriculum for Professional Education in Pain. According to the German Pain Association, approximately half of the 36 medical schools extant in Germany are teaching pain management. However, the recent introduction of amendments to the medical licensure laws has led to the introduction of pain medicine as a specific topic in the medical curriculum, and this must be implemented by all faculties by 2016. It is fundamental for post-licensure healthcare professionals to ensure a patient-centred collaboration and to improve existing barriers, such as poor interprofessional and interdisciplinary communication and traditional but obsolete mutual role expectations.