Optimal Management of Chronic Opioid Therapy – Scottsdale, Arizona

“Optimal Management of Chronic Opioid Therapy” was the topic of this October 22, 2013 Continuing Medical Education (CME) event held in Scottsdale, Arizona. Jointly sponsored by THE Surgical Hospital of Phoenix, PeaceHealth Laboratories and Dannemiller, the event discussed balancing pain management, patient safety and risk mitigation and featured keynote guest speaker Ms. Jennifer Bolen, JD, The Legal Side of Pain, from Knoxville, Tenn. Over 60 physician providers from the Phoenix area attended to learn how to protect their patients, their community and their practice.

Click here to view event program.

Dr. Lieberman is a board certified neurosurgeon specializing in treatment of complex brain, spine and nervous system conditions in adult and pediatric patients. He has special interests in the surgical treatment of movement disorders, brain tumors, epilepsy, pain and minimally invasive treatment of spinal disorders. He graduated from Pepperdine University with honors and earned his medical degree from the University of Arizona. Dr. Lieberman trained in Neurosurgery at the University of California at San Francisco, and completed a fellowship in movement disorder research at the National Institutes of Health.

Grant Beardsley is PeaceHealth Laboratories’ Manager of Drug Testing Services and Clinical Toxicologist. As a 30+ year laboratory veteran, he is as familiar with pharmacology of opiates and opioids as he is with laboratory techniques to detect drugs critical to any medication safety program. He holds a Master of Science in Pharmacology/Toxicology from the College of Pharmacy at Oregon State University in Corvallis and a Medical Technology degree from Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. He is certified as both a clinical chemist and a toxicological chemist by the National Registry in Clinical Chemistry.

Jennifer Bolen served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice for nearly 14 years. In 2002, she founded The Legal Side of Pain® and entered into private practice in 2003 to educate health care providers on medico-legal issues on the use of controlled substances to treat pain. She conducts practice audits and teaches providers how to perform self-audits to improve their pain management documentation practices and patient relationships. She specializes in creating and implementing regulatory compliance programs and patient risk management protocols including drug testing protocols and practice policies. From 2006–2009, Ms. Bolen served as special counsel to the American Academy of Pain Medicine. She was legal editor and contributor for Pain Medicine News and has published articles in Journal of Opioid Management and Practical Pain Management. She co-teaches a course on federal regulation of controlled substances as a guest faculty member with the University of Florida’s College of Pharmacy.