Welcome address of the Project Coordinator
Predrag Stevanovic, MD, PhD
Professor of Anaesthesiology, Intensive Care Medicine and Pain Therapy
School of Medicine, University of Belgrade;
Desk of Surgery and Anesthesiology
Clinical Hospital Center “Dr D. Misovic- DEDINJE”, Belgrade, Serbia
Dear friends and colleagues,
Welcome to the Official HEPMP Project Website.
I would like to thank everyone who recognized and supported this idea that I believed in. I have hoped that we could accomplish all this with joint forces.
In particular, I am referring to all the colleagues at the Faculty of Medicine University of Belgrade, but also to all the colleagues from other Universities. With the sincere support of the Tempus Foundation from Belgrade and the Erasmus+ Program of the Executive Agency (EACEA) in Brussels, the realization of this idea became possible.
As a Project Coordinator, I would like to invite you to browse these pages and get acquainted with the Project, its tasks and aims.
The intention of us gathered in this Project is to try to improve the treatment of Pain in the Western Balkans countries, through the education of health workers, but also to promote awareness of the need for a better approach to the problem of Pain.
Through the HEPMP, with the support of Erasmus+ Capacity Building programme, we will make an effort to establish a framework for realizing pan-European training and certification standards in Pain Medicine, which will include creation of a core curriculum of basic and applied medical knowledge on pain for under/postgraduate studies.
The Grant holder of the HEPMP is the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Medicine and the Project Consortium are Universities from the Partner countries:
• Faculty of Medicine of the University of Kragujevac (Serbia);
• Faculty of Medicine of the University of Banja Luka (Bosnia and Herzegovina);
• Faculty of Medicine of the University of Tuzla (Bosnia and Herzegovina);
• Faculty of Medicineof the University of Podgorica (Montenegro);
• University Clinical Hospital Center “Dr Dragisa Misovic-Dedinje”, Belgrade, Serbia;
as well as the Universities from Program countries:
• Faculty of Medicine University of Florence (Italy),
• Faculty of Medicine University of Rijeka (Croatia), and
• Medical Faculty of the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia.)
The program of postgraduate subspecialty named Pain Medicine was accredited at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade in 2013, covering basic, preventive and clinical thematic fields. It was created as a result of a Tempus Project entitled “Pain and Palliative Medicine Project”, which was conducted at the Faculty of Medicine from 2006-2009. After four years of working, we have seen the need to harmonize Pain Medicine specialty program according to the standards of study program of the European Federation of Pain (EFIC).
The integrative and multidisciplinary approach is a leading principle in the development of learning program in Pain Medicine, which should enable the transfer of knowledge obtained in basic disciplines to clinical practice, including new diagnostics and therapeutic procedures.
In order to realize the idea of the Project, we will do our best to implement the planned Project activities, which are following:
• modernising a curriculum of Pain Medicine specialty;
• developing a program or modules of Pain Medicine that will be included in undergraduate studies;
• organizing of Pain Medicine courses for health care workers in primary health care;
• organizing highly specialized courses for interventional pain management;
• publishing written material for learning (pain textbook, monograph, learning scripts, leaflets, etc.);
• developing a training program in the field of pain at significant Universities in the Western Balkans, where such program does not exist; and
• establishing a regional academic network for the exchange of knowledge of professionals who deal with Pain Medicine, as well as among Universities participating in the Project.
We are open to any new ideas or suggestions!
Sincerely,
Project Coordinator,
Professor Predrag Stevanovic, MD, PhD