Lynn R. Webster, MD, (born November 10, 1950) is a pain researcher and physician. From 1990 to 2010, he headed Lifetree Pain Clinic with approximately 15 healthcare providers. In 2010, Dr. Webster left the pain clinic to focus full-time on clinical research. The Lifetree Pain Clinic closed.
His research work centers on the development of safer and more effective therapies for chronic pain and addiction. He has studied the effects of opioids on sleep, the testing of new opioid formulations designed to deter misuse and effective screening methods to prevent opioid misuse. He is best known for developing the Opioid Risk Tool (ORT)and for his public campaign to reduce overdose deaths from prescription medications. Webster is currently the Vice President of Scientific Affairs at PRA Health Sciences.
In 2013, it was revealed that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had opened an investigation related to overdose deaths at the Lifetree Pain Clinic, beginning in 2010. After the investigation had concluded, in June 2016, the Salt Lake City Tribune was able to report that the U.S. attorney in Utah had declined to prosecute the case.
In September 2015, Dr. Webster published The Painful Truth: What Chronic Pain Is Really Like and Why It Matters to Each of Us, an intimate collection of stories about people living with disabling pain, their attempts to heal, and the challenges that society collectively faces in helping them live meaningful lives. In 2016, he will release an accompanying documentary to the book, to be released on a major television network.
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Education and training
Webster received a doctorate of medicine from the University of Nebraska in 1976 and began an internship with the University of Utah Medical Center shortly after. At the end of his internship, he started a fellowship in the Division of Artificial Organs and the Department of Surgery at the same medical center. Webster later moved from his fellowship to complete a residency at the University's Department of Anesthesiology. He went on to receive numerous certifications including board certifications in anesthesiology and pain medicine and certification in addiction medicine.
Dr. Webster is a past President of the American Academy of Pain Medicine (AAPM). Webster is currently the Vice President of Scientific Affairs at PRA Health Sciences.
Life Tree Clinical Research Video
Organizations
Once in practice, Webster co-founded Lifetree Clinical Research (now part of PRA Health Sciences) with Alice Jackson in 2003. Jackson and Webster developed the specialized clinic to provide drug development services, clinical trial management and site services for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. In 2010, Lifetree Clinical Research merged with CRI Worldwide to create CRI Lifetree. On November 13, 2013, CRI Lifetree was acquired by PRA International<http://www.praintl.com/pra-acquires-cri-lifetree>. Today Dr. Webster is the Vice President of Scientific Affairs at PRA International.
Webster was named a co-recipient of a National Institutes of Health research grant to conduct the first-ever genome-wide association study into the characteristics of patients who develop addiction after being treated with opioids for chronic noncancer pain. Webster is to serve as a co-investigator of the study alongside research teams from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Washington.
Webster also co-founded a non-profit organization, LifeSource, in 2006. The organization's goal was to educate physicians and patients on health issues while funding and conducting research to find solutions for pain-related social and scientific issues. For the next six years, LifeSource worked within the pain community on the "Zero Unintentional Deaths" project and other endeavors aimed at improving patient quality of life. The LifeSource organization closed in 2012 to re-direct support to the American Academy of Pain Medicine Foundation (AAPMF).
The Power of Pain
In December 2016, Oxford university Press published the hardcover version of The Painful Truth: What Chronic Pain Is Really Like and Why It Matters to Each of Us, an intimate collection of stories about people living with disabling pain, their attempts to heal, and the challenges that society collectively faces in helping them live meaningful lives. As a physician who has treated people with chronic pain for more than thirty years, Dr. Webster reveals the difficulties that patients face in dealing with chronic pain in a society that is often shamefully prejudiced against those who are most in need of empathy. He shares how such biases also affect medical professionals who treat patients with chronic pain. He also is the co-producer of an accompanying TV documentary called "The Painful Truth," that was distributed by NETA (National Educational Telecommunications Association) to National Public Television stations all across the U.S. in 2017. Webster also co-produced a version of the documentary called "It Hurts Until You Die" for film festivals.
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Publications
Webster's work was first published in 1978 by the Southern Medical Journal. He worked with four other medical professionals to publish the article, "Plasma cortisol and antidiuretic hormone concentrations after artificial heart implantation." Since then, Webster's work has appeared in over 100 scientific abstracts and journals. In 2007, he published the book, Avoiding Opioid Abuse While Managing Pain: A Guide for Practitioners.
Selected publications
- Webster, Lynn R.; Webster, Rebecca M. (2005). "Predicting Aberrant Behaviors in Opioid-Treated Patients: Preliminary Validation of the Opioid Risk Tool". Pain Medicine. 6 (6): 432-42. doi:10.1111/j.1526-4637.2005.00072.x. PMID 16336480.
- Webster, Lynn R. (2005). "Methadone-related deaths". Journal of Opioid Management. 1 (4): 211-7. PMID 17315549.
- Webster, Lynn R.; Choi, Youngmi; Desai, Himanshu; Webster, Linda; Grant, Brydon J. B. (2008). "Sleep-Disordered Breathing and Chronic Opioid Therapy". Pain Medicine. 9 (4): 425-32. doi:10.1111/j.1526-4637.2007.00343.x. PMID 18489633.
- Webster, Lynn R. (2008). "Pharmacogenetics in Pain Management: The Clinical Need". Clinics in Laboratory Medicine. 28 (4): 569-79. doi:10.1016/j.cll.2008.05.005. PMID 19059063.
- Mogri, Mohammed; Desai, Himanshu; Webster, Lynn; Grant, Brydon J. B.; Mador, M. Jeffery (2008). "Hypoxemia in patients on chronic opiate therapy with and without sleep apnea". Sleep and Breathing. 13 (1): 49-57. doi:10.1007/s11325-008-0208-4. PMID 18683000.
- Webster, Lynn R.; Cochella, Susan; Dasgupta, Nabarun; Fakata, Keri L.; Fine, Perry G.; Fishman, Scott M.; Grey, Todd; Johnson, Erin M.; Lee, Lewis K.; Passik, Steven D.; Peppin, John; Porucznik, Christina A.; Ray, Albert; Schnoll, Sidney H.; Stieg, Richard L.; Wakeland, Wayne (2011). "An Analysis of the Root Causes for Opioid-Related Overdose Deaths in the United States". Pain Medicine. 12: S26-35. doi:10.1111/j.1526-4637.2011.01134.x. PMID 21668754.
- Webster, Lynn R.; Fine, Perry G. (2012). "Overdose Deaths Demand a New Paradigm for Opioid Rotation". Pain Medicine. 13 (4): 571-4. doi:10.1111/j.1526-4637.2012.01356.x. PMID 22458858.
Recent awards
- Mayday Fellowship, Awarded by the American Academy of Pain Medicine in August 2010.
- "Presidential Excellence Award for Education], Awarded by the American Academy of Pain Medicine on February 25, 2012
- His documentary called "It Hurts Until You Die," won an Impacs Docs Award in 2017.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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