History

But with an established journal to our name, the USASP will be starting out with at least one solid block in the foundation upon which we will be building a new association. Thus, with a little luck and a lot of hard work, the new Board of Directors will establish an association that meets the needs of its membership, facilitating their struggle to achieve better and more effective pain management for all who need it.

This initial Board of Directors of the USASP will have a lot to accomplish in its first year, including a membership drive, the first annual meeting, and the application to be the US chapter of the IASP, all done in the face of an ongoing pandemic, opioid crisis, and long overdue cultural revolution.

The initial board is composed of volunteers from the Organizing Committee who agreed to sit for terms ranging between ~one and ~three years and were elected by the Organizing Committee.

Needs Assessment survey data were used to guide remaining decisions about the structure of the board, election process, and board composition. This last issue generated the most discussion, with the final decision being that board composition would be a dynamic process whereby board seats for each election would be defined by the “call for nominations” generated by a nominating committee, with the goal of generating a board reflecting the composition of the membership, including diversity, across the pain research committee. Finally, an implementation plan enabled the USASP to transition to a member-based society with a turnover of 1/3 of the board every year.

A final contract was signed with Elsevier on May 18 2020, and the Journal resumed accepting new manuscript submissions the next day.

One of the few issues not covered in the Needs Assessment was whether the USASP could or should be established as a “sister” organization to another established society. Given the number of potential partners, the near unanimous Organizing Committee vote on this issue was that while the USASP should facilitate interactions across and between societies, it should be a stand-alone organization.

Thus, subcommittees were established to address the nuts and bolts of turning the three member 501(c)(3) that was the USASP into a member-based society. This included laying the groundwork for a presence in the ether (website, twitter handle), plans for an annual meeting (to be virtual in the Fall of 2020), and most importantly, the structure of the organization in terms of bylaws and articles of incorporation.

With the JoP related issues relatively clearly defined, the Organizing Committee turned its focus to addressing the clear mandate from the Needs Assessment to develop a US-based pain society that is multidisciplinary and brings together scientists, clinicians, health-care providers, and policymakers to support the study of pain in order to directly improve the lives of people in pain.

There was a broader range of opinions with respect to the answer to the second question with no clear consensus on the structure of the organization (Federation vs more traditional structure), how leadership and representation would be determined (by special interest group, discipline, etc), and whether the organization was run day to day by volunteers or a company. Nevertheless, the vast majority of respondents indicated that what they wanted most out of a society was a professional meeting, multidisciplinary membership, a journal, networking opportunities, and national advocacy.

A total of 933 responses were received from many individuals interested in the US pain community and a longer report on the results of this assessment can be found below. The answer to the first question was clear: 71% (n=617) of professionals and trainees residing in the US who responded to the survey (n=869) indicated that the available professional societies were not meeting their needs for their work in pain.

Legal fees associated with the wording of the purchase agreement, as well as support for the JoP editorial office that continued to process manuscripts in the publication pipeline through what proved to be a long process of finalizing an editorial agreement needed to resume publication of the journal.

Altogether, this campaign generated more than $170,000 (list of donors to be added when JoP editorial published), which not only covered the winning bid and purchase of the Journal on January 14, and the expedited processing of the USASP registration process, but what turned out to be a rapidly growing list of additional expenses.

The second issue was going to require a lot of quick decisions that were addressed by the Organizing Committee. They lead in formation of the United States Association for the Study of Pain (USASP), a registered 501(c)(3) corporation, for the purpose of purchasing the JoP.

Employed to address the first issue, which included establishing a GoFundMe campaign (that raised almost $30,000) and a lot of direct contacts.

The compressed time-line precipitated a scramble to not only raise the money needed for the purchase of the Journal, but to create a non-profit organization that would enable potential donors to make the needed contributions.

Despite all the work that would still need to be done to form a society, let alone the awkward fact of putting the cart (a society journal) before the horse (the formation of a society), the possibility of purchasing JoP was just too good to pass up.

On just about the same day the Needs Assessment survey was heading out the door, the details of the auction of the Journal of Pain (JoP) were announced. An opening bid (of no less than $10,000) was due December 9, with the auction date set for December 12.

To answer these questions the committee generated a Needs Assessment survey that was released in November, and concluded in February.

Formally addressing the two questions originally posed: Is there a need for a new US pain research organization, given the existence of multiple pain societies, and if so, what would it look like?

The result was the creation of a group of 41 individuals from across the country, with varied career trajectories, specialty, and interests, all committed the promotion of interdisciplinary pain research.

Some groups, such as basic pain scientists, held an election. Others, such as the Eastern Pain Society had already voted for their representative who were invited to join.

The goal was to make representation on this committee as broad as possible, and the strategy was to reach out to any and all groups, specialties, disciplines with a link to pain research.

Taking this consensus as mandate, we began putting together an Organizing Committee for a US-based pain society.

The discussion focused on whether existing pain associations met the needs of the larger pain research community and therefore whether a new organization was needed. While a number of attendees felt it was important to work with the existing pain associations, the clear consensus was that there was a need for a new organization.

Not only did they agree to devote time, but enabled pain researchers from around the country who were not able to attend the Midwest regional Pain Interest Group in person, to participate in the discussion virtually (who knew this would become our norm in a little over eight months!).

Approached the organizers of the Midwest regional Pain Interest Group to see if time could be devoted to a discussion of the future of a US based pain research association.

Drs. Michael Gold and Jennifer Haythornthwaite had been reaching out to pain researchers around the country to get their thoughts on whether a new pain society was needed and if so, what it might look like.