Pain and Opioid Management in Veterans in Primary Care
Evidence, Lessons Learned, and Future Directions in the Use of Collaborative and Integrated Care Approaches
Karen Seal, MD, MPH is a professor of medicine and psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. She is based at the San Francisco VA Health Care System (SFVAHCS), where she is director of the Integrated Care Clinic for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans and director of the Integrated Pain Team (IPT) Clinic.
The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) Integrative Medicine Research Lecture Series
Dr. Seal discusses an ongoing pilot randomized control trial
involving veterans with chronic pain and high-risk prescription
opioid use, which aims to examine pain- and opioid-related
outcomes resulting from biopsychosocial, nonpharmacologic care
including motivational interviewing, shared decision-making and
“SMART” goal planning as part of a multi-modal pain care
plan.
Dr. Seal’s research focuses on developing and testing new
integrated care interventions to address comorbid mental and
physical health problems, including chronic pain and opioid
misuse among veterans.