Is a career in pain medicine right for me?

Pain medicine has been recognised as a distinct specialty since 2005 in Australia and 2012 in New Zealand, positioning both the countries as pioneers in the field. The faculty was the first of its kind globally when it was formed in 1998.

With it's multidisciplinary approach, pain medicine offers a dynamic and fulfilling career path for specialists seeking new challenges and opportunities for impact.

Severe, persistent and unrelieved pain is a significant global health challenge with profound financial, social, and emotional impacts on individuals, families, and communities.

By the late 20th century, clinicians became increasingly aware that, unlike other areas of medicine, advancements in pain management had not kept pace with medical progress. As a result, many people living with pain were not receiving the specialised care they needed. This gap in knowledge and treatment underscored the need for pain medicine to emerge as a dedicated specialty, ensuring patients receive comprehensive, evidence-based care tailored to their unique needs.

Pain medicine acknowledges that managing severe and persistent pain requires expertise from multiple medical disciplines. Modern pain management integrates biomedical, psychological, and sociological (behavioural) approaches to understand:

• What is happening in the patient’s body.
• What is happening to them as a person.
• What is happening in their broader environment.

By considering these factors, pain medicine takes a comprehensive, person-centred approach to health and wellbeing, addressing the complex nature of pain.

The field is one of the fastest-growing areas in the neurosciences, with a rapidly expanding body of research in both basic and clinical science. The strong connection between scientific discovery and clinical practice continues to enhance patient care and advance the discipline.

Many specialists in pain medicine contribute to clinical and laboratory research, while also playing a vital role in undergraduate and postgraduate education—helping to bridge the knowledge gap and shape the future of pain management.

Specialist pain medicine physicians (pain specialists) serve as a consultant to other physicians; often as the principal treating physician. The spectrum of care they provide includes:

• Education.
• Co-ordinating rehabilitation.
• Directing a multidisciplinary team.
• Offering evidence-based advice and practice with regard to medication and procedural interventions.
• Counselling patients and families.
• Collaborating with other health care professionals and agencies.

Pain specialists work with a large degree of autonomy but in the context of a multidisciplinary team-based approach to the diagnosis and management of complex pain problems.

Those involved in the management of chronic non-cancer and cancer pain accept major responsibilities for continuity of care, in collaboration with the referring medical practitioners and with other specialist medical and allied health care professionals.

Pain specialists usually have a substantial commitment to outpatient consulting, inpatient consulting, multidisciplinary team meetings and, in some cases, procedural work.

Clinical skills and experience are important, of course, and pain specialists are some of the most qualified medical practitioners there are. But to truly succeed as a specialist pain medicine physician, you need particular personal qualities.

• Can you apply high-level practical knowledge, skills and professional attitudes across unpredictable and complex situations?
• Do you have the high personal standards of behaviour, accountability and leadership skills required to practice ethically for the health and wellbeing benefit of both individuals and society as a whole?
• Are you prepared to learn, create, disseminate, apply, and translate knowledge in order to educate patients, students, colleagues and the community?
• Are you an effective communicator, with the ability to listen, interpret and explain the predicament and concerns of the patient in a sociopsychobiomedical context?
• Do you understand how personal beliefs and cultural bias may influence interactions with others?
• Can you work effectively in a healthcare team to achieve optimal patient care?
• Are you able to make and manage decisions about resource allocation as may apply personally, professionally and at an organisational level, to provide leadership and to contribute to the effectiveness of the healthcare system?
• Will you use your expertise and influence responsibly to advance the health and wellbeing of patients, colleagues, and communities?

In Australia and New Zealand, pain medicine is a post-specialisation qualification. So to be eligible to register for our pain medicine training program, you must have either completed or be training towards a primary specialist qualification. Before applying, please check that you meet the following requirements:

1. Do you hold a primary medical degree?
2. Do you have specialist medical registration?
3. Have you either qualified as a specialist in - or completed three years towards - an approved primary qualification?

The primary specialist qualification will need to be a qualification approved by the Faculty of Pain Medicine Board. The board will accept overseas qualifications that are deemed substantially or partially comparable by the Australian equivalent college. For any queries regarding whether your qualification is approved by the board, please contact us.

If you trained as a specialist pain medicine physician overseas, we offer a Specialist International Medical Graduate pathway to allow you to practice in either Australia or New Zealand. To find out if you are eligible, click here.  

If you are an international qualified specialist or international specialist-in-training, you can undertake short-term training in Australia in pain medicine for 12 months. This pathway does not lead to fellowship. Find out more about the Short-term training pathway.