In our latest episode, we sit down with Dr. Beth Darnall, Professor at Stanford University School of Medicine under the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative, and Pain Medicine. We open the episode with how Dr. Darnall’s path through graduate school led to her focus on revolutionizing treatments for chronic pain.

Dr. Darnall breaks down how pain is a consequence of a diseased state of the nervous system itself and how pain should be viewed as a biopsychosocial condition instead of a purely biomedical problem. She expands on how the current landscape of pain treatment utilizes opioids as a frontline treatment and how her work has focused on harnessing non-pharmaceutical treatments to optimize pain management.

Dr. Darnall dives into her innovation through Empowered Relief, a 1-session intervention that rapidly equips individuals with pain relief skills for chronic pain, acute pain, and surgical recovery, and how this solution expands access to pain care by providing an alternative to traditional pain medications and 16 hours of cognitive behavioral therapy.

She elaborates on her role as the Director of Stanford’s Pain Relief Innovations Lab where she leads NIH and PCORI-funded clinical trials through studies such as EMPOWER and PROGRESS which look at voluntary opioid reduction and pain relief for chronic pain. We close the episode by touching on Dr. Darnall’s role as Chief Science Advisor at AppliedVR and how virtual reality therapeutics enable patients to access an immersive, home-based pain treatment device. Learn More: https://profiles.stanford.edu/beth-darnall

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04994-5https://www.appliedvr.io/