Recalibrating our Understanding of Pain with Dr. Tara Nichols (Part 1 of 2)
Dr. Tara Nichols, DNP, RN
A Conversation about Shifting our Focus around Pain— Let’s Talk about Comfort
This interview will be shared in 2 parts— details can be found in the introduction, including what to expect in part 1.
(0:00) Intro:
Dr. Tara Nichols, is an advanced registered nurse practitioner with a Doctorate of Nurse Practice, and triple certification in Critical Care, Adult-Gerontology, and Pain Management. Tara has over 30 years of experience in healthcare with significant experience and expertise in caring science, applying relationship-based care to practice, and pain management. She has witnessed first hand the role relationships play in health, and specifically with how pain is experienced. This led her to co-develop and publish the Therapeutic Model of Comfort to address the need to expand our understanding of the physiology of pain to also include the physiology of comfort.
Dr. Nichols is currently the program director of the RN- BSN program at Waldorf University and the CEO of Maters of Comfort, in Mason City, IA. Maters of comfort is both a Consulting Firm addressing comfort and pain from an expanded perspective that includes collaboration with a variety of disciplines and a private practice for pain and comfort management that is focused on helping people find the right combinations of medicine and non-medicine treatments to manage chronic pain and opioid use disorder.
What to Expect in Part 1
This conversation will be shared in two parts and the OT recap will be shared after part 2.
In this conversation, we invite you to slow your pace, pause to consider how language impacts our experience of pain and comfort, and wonder about how relationships may be a factor in someone’s experience of pain.
Dr. Nichols asks us to consider 4 key points as we have this conversation:
1. Recalibrating the idea that pain is bad
2. Reconsider the notion that pain is something that we need to fix and instead think of wanting to improve function and mobility while maximizing safety.
3. The difference between acute and chronic pain
4. Treatment options-- We don’t treat what we don’t assess-- who’s missing from the team?
Wondering about what is possible and how we assemble the right partners to help people find comfort and manage pain are where we begin this conversation. The energy, wisdom, and compassion Dr. Nichols brings to this conversation and topic are contagious and we look forward to sharing this with you.
And now-- part 1 of the conversation with Dr. Tara Nichols, DNP, RN.
(02:53) Interview begins
For more in depth information on resources discussed during this conversation— please see journal article and podcast listed below.
References
To learn more about the Model of Comfort
Nichols, T (2018). Comfort as a Multidimensional Construct for Pain Management, Creative Nursing, 24 (2) 88-98.
doi: 10.1891/1078-4535.24.2.88.
Podcast with Dr. Nichols and Dr. Nelson
Part 1
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/931d69ea-e680-4ff2-9826-4e25076bf2ff/episodes/efe7f20a-63f9-4c24-9115-4773acb1f0af/the-science-of-caring-how-healthcare-professionals-can-better-understand-patient-pain-and-improve-the-patient-experience
Part 2
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/931d69ea-e680-4ff2-9826-4e25076bf2ff/episodes/b9934928-426f-4226-9628-0d40c44abf17/the-science-of-caring-how-healthcare-professionals-can-better-understand-patient-pain-and-improve-the-patient-experience---part-2
