SOURCE: Medical Directions Inc.

Tucson, AZ August 1, 2008: The just-published July-August edition of Pain Medicine, the official journal of the American Academy of Pain Medicine, features two research articles from Medical Directions, Inc. (MDI), a leading medical education research and publishing company. The articles describe the company's work in developing a survey tool for assessing physician knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about chronic pain management and report a randomized controlled trial evaluating the effectiveness of live lectures and MDI's online education program in improving physician training in pain management. An accompanying editorial by Drs. Erin Krebs and Matthew Bair notes that the MDI-developed survey "…is likely to be a boon for future research," and that ". . . effective education programs such as the one evaluated in this article (publicly available at www.vlh.com) meet a real need."

Dr. John Harris Jr., the lead author on both reports and the President of MDI notes that it is unusual for a medical journal to publish two articles by the same authors in one issue. "We are quite pleased that the journal's editor, Dr. Gallagher, recognized the value of this pathbreaking research in medical education and allowed readers to have access to the full scope of this work by publishing the two articles together."

The two research articles were featured in a special edition of Pain Medicine devoted to issues in primary care and health services. Pain experts have long noted that primary care physicians are frontline care providers for most chronic pain patients. A second editorial by Dr. Bair called on medical schools and primary care residency programs to expand their pain management education efforts.

The online pain education program, "Improving Outcomes in Chronic Pain" described in the research reports, is currently marketed by MDI to individual physicians and to physician training programs. It was authored by Drs. Charles Chabal, Bennet Davis, and Thomas Elliott, national experts in chronic pain management and education. The course is available to practicing physicians via The Virtual Lecture Hall (www.vlh.com), a physician education Website supported by physician subscribers and owned by MDI. Educational institutions can also offer the online program via their internal electronic distribution technologies.

About MDI – MDI is a privately held company that works with academic medical centers, professional organizations, and government agencies to develop, evaluate, and distribute online education programs for health professionals. For more information, please visit www.md-inc.com.

For further information, contact:

John Harris Jr., MD
Medical Directions, Inc.
520-722-1970
sharris@md-inc.com

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