Grand Rounds is a pain-free experience. I should know - I just put my first one together!   (Volume 4, No. 7)  Many thanks to Dr. Nick Genes, godfather of GR, for this opportunity, and for all his guidance. It’s been fun for me - I hope you all enjoy it.

For better or for worse, pain is a universal part of our shared human experience, something that each and every one of us has felt. Pain wears many faces, and yet we cannot see it. We can only see expressions of pain, and it can visit us on many different planes. It is both the uninvited messenger and our first line of defense. Sometimes pain comes and goes; for some, it stays for a while, for others, it never leaves. As patients, friends, family members, and caregivers, how do WE deal with pain? What do we learn from it? How do we adapt and adjust to it? How does it inform the way we conduct our lives? How do we describe pain, how does it speak to us, and on how many different levels does it affect us?

Pain on a physical level can be debilitating. Laurie at A Chronic Dose adeptly describes what she has recently learned watching a loved one suffer, and how her own helplessness in the face of this seems trivial compared to the physical pain that such a person must bear. Pain and rehabilitation go hand in hand, and RehabRN knows this intimately. As she so succinctly puts it, “pain is no friend, although it is a constant companion.” Dr. Anonymous  whets our appetite with a possible new treatment for pain using chili peppers. Dr. Val enlightens us about phantom pain that is felt at amputated extremities, and the mind’s quirky capacity to remember a limb still being there after it is gone. And Sid Schwab at Surgeonsblog reminds us that little operations make big differences, and that sometimes there can be no greater satisfaction than so “effortlessly” relieving someone’s pain.

How does pain speak to us? Robert and Janette Bach at Kintropy in Action are raising ’special needs’ daughter, Hannah, and at 4:30 in the morning, Robert is trying to figure out why Hannah is bawling her eyes out - talk about a differential diagnosis! And what can be more painful than facing our own shortcomings and personal failure? T. at Notes of an Anesthesioboist measuredly examines her dark moment as an intern that haunts her to this day.

And then there are the stories that stir pain within us, because we feel for each other. KeepBreathing at Respiratory101 paints for us the ultimate hopeless case that all too frequently comes to the hospital, and how compassionate care is placed on the chopping block. Amy at DiabetesMine shares the stories of two of her readers who struggle to deal with the pain in their lives. Paul Auerbach at Medicine for the Outdoors lovingly tells us about what he has come to learn about the man he admires most in his life, his dad, and his amazing inspirational attitude in the face of many sources of pain.

Emotional pain can wound and scar our psyches, and hurts just as deeply as physical pain. Paul Levy, at Running A Hospital, describes the devastating effect that an unwarranted malpractice suit can have upon a dedicated and conscientious physician. Somedaynurse, at How I Spent My Nursing Education, provides an insider’s view into bipolar disorder, and so poignantly describes the struggle and fortitude that she musters up when she is in its depths - compelling reading!  Patrick Coffee at Treatment Online has very painful information for us about how our veterans returning from war are suffering. Nancy L. Brown at TeenHealth 411 knows that children raised by parents suffering with borderline personalities do not have to live their own lives in emotional pain, if they can seek help and intervention.

What do we learn from pain? Kerri at Six Until Me has discovered the power of humor to help her deal with the grueling day-to-day ordeal that is type 1 diabetes. Sometimes laughter is still the best medicine. Barbara Kivowitz at In Sickness and In Health knows that everything starts inside, and has learned to listen to her pain. She describes how she bravely figured out how to form a partnership with chronic pain. Very moving! A blog entirely devoted to pain called, appropriately enough, How To Cope With Pain, talks about how to journal about your negative experiences as a way of processing emotional and physical pain. And a monthly Pain-Blog Carnival has just begun there, too. Check it out.

How do we ease our pain, and the suffering of others? Susan Palwick at Rickety Contrivances of Doing Good shares how the fulfillment of an unusual request helped a bereaving family feel better about their loss. The Physician Executive, Zagreus Ammon, entreats us to embrace a more palliative approach to caring for terminally ill patients. Dr. Geek M.D. has just returned from the devastating fires in Southern California, with some deeply moving stories and insights. At Cure This,  Brownfemipower is learning to help herself - she has honest-to-goodness health insurance for the first time in her life. She knows too well the pain of being poor and feeling victimized.

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This edition of Grand Rounds has now come to a close. Although this week’s theme touched upon painful areas, I hope that after reading some of this great writing that you leave feeling more uplifted. It has been my honor and pleasure to hear from so many bloggers from all over the planet, and I truly appreciate all of your submissions. I limited my selections to those that shared the “human” side of dealing with pain. Next week, on November 13, Grand Rounds will be held at Doctor Anonymous.