Dr. West on Pain Management for Endometrial Cancer

Lindsay West, MD, gynecologic oncologist, University of North Carolina (UNC) Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, UNC School of Medicine, discusses pain management for patients with endometrial cancer.

According to West, it is important for physicians to think about how patients are treated for pain management, as it is an important topic given the current opioid crisis in the United States. West has been working on a project at UNC to determine how patients are treated postoperatively with pain medications, how many they take, and how physicians can do better when prescribing medications.

Pain management is an area that needs to be explored, because it may have a positive impact on this opioid crisis, explains West. While the big picture seems very overwhelming, physicians can be doing things every day to minimize that risk on a smaller scale, she explains, which will impact the opioid crisis on a larger scale.