Article

July 12, 2010

Chair holder aims to help hospitals relieve children's suffering

 

By Mary Somers

 

Left, is Dr. Allen Finley, the first holder of the Dr. Stewart Wenning Chair in Pediatric Pain Mangaement at the IWK Health Centre. Finley, a leader in pediatric pain management, is also professor of anesthesia and psychology at Dalhousie and medical director of Pediatric Pain Management at the IWK Health Centre. With him, at the announcment of the chair, were the its benefactors, Mildred & Thomas Irvine, St. Stephen, N.B., shown flanking, Robbie Shaw, the President & CEO of the IWK Health Centre Foundation.

A generous gift will help Dr. Allen Finley and his colleagues in their battle against children’s pain and create a model for hospitals around the world.

Dr. Finley, professor of Anesthesia and Psychology at Dalhousie and Medical Director of Pediatric Pain Management at the IWK Health Centre, is the first holder of the Dr. Stewart Wenning Chair in Pediatric Pain Management. The chair is funded by a donation that was announced July 9 by the IWK Health Care Foundation. The donation is from Mildred and Thomas Irvine. It will fund initiatives to improve child pain prevention and treatment throughout the Maritimes and around the world. “I view this chair as invoking a commitment to research and services, and also to advocacy,” Dr. Finley told a crowd at the announcement.
 

The resources generated by this donation, he said, will help create an innovative, specialized pain management network by uniting hospitals and clinicians across the region to ensure Maritime children receive the best care possible. In turn, this will create a model for other countries.

Finley has worked in pain research and management for 20 years. He has published more than 80 journal papers and is an advocate for improved pain management for children in both developing and developed countries. His projects have taken him to Jordan, Thailand, China, Brazil and other countries.

“Children all over the world still suffer from pain after surgery, from arthritis, from burns and from hospital pokes – the pain we as doctors and nurses inflict upon them,” said Finley in his address.

He stressed that health care professionals need to recognize the importance of pain to patients, their families and their caregivers.

“Imagine being the parent of a child with cancer who will not let you hug her because it hurts too much,” he said. “Imagine being a teenager with chronic pain that no one believes. Imagine being too young to find the words to say you’re in pain.”

Finley said the chair also would allow the pain management team to implement the principles of ChildKind International. It’s an initiative to establish global standards of children’s pain management in hospitals around the world and to certify hospitals that take steps to prevent and treat child pain.

Finley said Dalhousie and the IWK are fortunate to have developed a core group of researchers and clinicians who are among the best in the world.

“We had the first comprehensive hospital-wide pediatric pain program in Canada and we’ve only grown from there.

“Now, by reaching out to clinicians and hospitals throughout the Maritimes, we can prevent acute pain from occurring and we can prevent it from developing into chronic pain that stops children from attending school, learning, playing and developing.”

The new chair is named after Dr. Stewart Wenning, one of the first doctors in Canada to improve the surgical and anesthesia experiences of children and a pivotal force in getting the IWK Children’s Hospital built.

Mildred and Thomas Irvine lived next door to the Wennings and were good friends. Retired school teachers who now live in St. Stephen, N.B., the Irvines taught in the Halifax area for 30 years.

The Irvines said they were inspired by Wenning’s dedication and commitment and wanted to honor his memory.

“We can see we have made a very happy choice,” said Thomas Irvine, “and we hope it will benefit others in the future.”

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Media enquiries:
Allison Gerrard, Dalhousie Medical School, 902.494.1789, 902.222.1917, allison.gerrard@dal.ca