Thank you for registering for this year’s Midwestern Semi-Regional Central Pain Advocacy Annual Meeting. We look forward to sharing a day of information and professionally appropriate fun with you!

In light of Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill’s report about some other pain advocacy groups receiving their funding from large pharmaceutical companies, we’d like to provide you with this quick reference resource for evaluating whether or not your pain advocacy group is funded by a big pharmaceutical company or not!

Thanks for choosing MSRCPA for all your pain advocacy needs.


  • The group organizer always has branded pens and mouse pads to hand out at each annual meeting.
  • The opening presentation suggests making wisdom tooth extraction a part of a regular high school physicals. They suggest increasing the pain control regime to cover before, during and aftercare and extending the recommended dosing schedule from four days to three years.
  • The free candy offered at the registration table never varies. It always looks like Altoids, but never smells like mint.
  • The alternative pain management workshop involves acupuncture. The needles are dipped in a mysterious liquid and labeled with Janssen Pharmaceuticals stickers. The first session is always free.
  • You notice a meeting helper pouring water over the icy patch in front of a pile of shards of glass outside the door before each winter meeting.
  • An eager meeting attendee is always really interested to know if your patients experience vomiting, diarrhea, numbness, paralysis, rash, heart palpitations, stroke, or erections lasting more than 8 hours. They take copious notes.
  • Concurrent afternoon sessions allow doctors to roleplay the best ways to encourage their patients to “get in touch” with their pain. Doctors practice emphatically pointing and nodding to the red frowny face on the pain scale throughout a mock consultation while employing the Vulcan nerve pinch on pretend patients.
  • The meeting organizers aggressively pass around a vaguely worded petition they say will help legislate for insurance coverage of opioid alternatives. Everyone gets intense papercuts.
  • An evening workshop is held by a “pain management specialist” in a dark alley that smells like cat piss where everyone has Purdue Pharmaceutical shirts and menacingly brandish baseball bats.
  • A well-attended demonstration involves a Fentanyl-branded t-shirt cannon. It’s recommended that t-shirts be wrapped around bowling balls and fired at close range.
  • When you ask about any possible addiction issues with the free trial of the new Subsys pain management spray being handed around at the meeting, the speaker gives you a fancy branded pen and mouse pad and encourages you to teach your patients deep breathing techniques if they struggle with swallowing large pills.
  • Every third meeting you attend you get a free Sundae and 10 coupons for 120 days worth of co-pay free OxyContin to share with your patients.
  • The meeting organizer accidentally slips you a $100 bill and a Purdue Pharmaceuticals branded Rolex when you ask for a tissue.
  • Your group leader ends the meeting by handing you a suitcase full of money and 20 free patient passes to the trampoline park next door for their midnight “Bounce with Bears” glow event next week. This includes unlimited tries at the “Bed of Nails” challenge!
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