[German Pain Association--to establish treatment of chronic pain as an obligatory subject of examination]. / Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schmerztherapie (DGS)--"Chronische Schmerztherapie muss obligatorisches Prüfungsfach werden!"

The German Pain Association (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schmerztherapie, DGS) consists of 4800 members, who are physicians of different medical specialties. Their mission is to increase the therapy of chronic pain and to establish it as a combined multidisciplinary treatment. As core requirements of the association the academic education has to be improved, chronic pain to be established as an obligatory subject on the examination for the license to practice medicine. One of the major tasks is to provide continuing medical education for physicians: More than 500 seminars are held by the 150 centers of the German Pain Association.

[International expert group for safety in medical device reprocessing (smdr)--patient safety has the foremost priority]. / Aufbereitung von Medizinprodukten--Expertengruppe "smdr" will Qualität erhöhen und Missstände aufdecken.

Unsafe reprocessing of medical device carries severe health hazards. Definite guidelines for reprocessing were drawn up by the german supreme federal authorities Robert-Koch-Institute (RKI) and Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (Bundesinstitut für Arzneimittel und Medizinprodukte, BfArM). Their joint statement covers both the devices declared for single and multi use. But however, there are problems in safety, resulting from ignorance or non-application of these guidelines especially in the ambulatory/outpatient area. To improve this deficiency, the international expert group for safety in medical device reprocessing (smdr) was founded at the end of 2006 by medical, technical and legal experts from Europe and Asia.

[German research network on neuropathic pain: working on future therapy]. / Deutscher Forschungsverbund Neuropathischer Schmerz (DFNS) - Arbeiten an der Therapie der Zukunft.

Founded in 2002, the German Research Network on Neuropathic Pain includes the major institutions, authorities and medical disciplines engaged in therapy and research on Neuropathic pain. Together they work on a better understanding of the pathophysiology, the development of new therapies and the appropriate usage of established interventions for the treatment as well as the prevention of neuropathic pain. The network's central project is the establishment of a data bank, currently including standardized information of more than 1500 patients with neuropathic pain regarding socio-economic, psycho-social, psychological data and the results of quantitative sensory testing (QST), a standardized protocol implemented by the network.