Learn with and from others about pain as a complex human experience through Pain Week
DID YOU KNOW?
Ignoring pain education costs too much.
Chronic pain affects 1 in 5 Canadians (nearly 8 million individuals) and costs over $40.3 billion annually, yet pain education in healthcare programs remains inadequate. Researchers from the University of Toronto’s Centre for the Study of Pain (UTCSP) discovered that veterinarians receive five times more pain education than human healthcare providers. This revealed a critical gap in how we prepare professionals to understand pain as a complex human experience.
The UTCSP Response
In response, the UTCSP created the Interfaculty Pain Curriculum (IPC) – ‘Pain Week’ – in 2002. This transformative program builds upon traditional clinical training to examine how pain emerges through relationships between bodies, minds, social systems, and environments. It provides in-depth, interprofessional pain care education for students across healthcare disciplines, fostering a future with comprehensive, equity-informed responses to pain. Students learn to recognize pain not only as a medical condition, but as an experience shaped by structural factors, cultural contexts, and community connections.
MORE ABOUT US
Advancing Pain Education with Diversity, Expertise and Compassion
IPC Pain Week offers a unique opportunity to reimagine healthcare education through a comprehensive and compassionate lens. Integrating biological, psychological, social, and spiritual aspects of pain, the program addresses major gaps in health and medical training by focusing on pain as both a clinical and human experience.
Students from eight health disciplines—medicine, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, social work, and physician assistants—learn together in an interprofessional environment that prepares them for the realities of modern healthcare. IPC Pain Week helps learners to respond not just to pain symptoms, but to the full complexity of pain lived by patients in their communities. It’s an opportunity to listen, reflect, and grow alongside peers and people living with pain.
It was very useful to have someone with a lived experience of chronic pain lead the curriculum. It allowed me to learn from the patient’s perspective.
Nursing Student
CORE VALUES
Elevating the Standard of Pain Education
IPC Pain Week is more than a curriculum—it’s a learning environment rooted in compassion, collaboration, and curiosity. It combines interprofessional insight with relational learning, supporting students as they explore how pain is shaped not only by biology, but also by culture, identity, systems, and care relationships.
Universal Understanding
IPC explores pain as a lived experience, integrating current research with community-informed practice to offer a multifaceted understanding of pain.
Pedagogical Innovation
IPC blends evidence-informed content with reflective, case-based, and experiential learning to foster critical thinking and interprofessional growth.
Patient-Partnered Education
Our programming centres patient voices and lived experience. Students gain tools to provide empathetic, collaborative, and patient-informed care.
Cultivating Leaders
We nurture leadership grounded in equity, accountability, and humility, preparing students to take initiative in pain care improvement.
Diverse Expertise
Through diverse facilitators, disciplines, and perspectives, IPC helps students engage with complexity and see themselves as part of a broader pain care ecosystem.
GET STARTED
Transform your institution’s approach to pain management education.
By providing an interprofessional pain curriculum, we are not just educating about pain care; we are nurturing a new generation of healthcare professionals committed to placing patient well-being at the heart of their practice.
By providing an interprofessional pain curriculum, we are not just educating about pain care; we are nurturing a new generation of healthcare professionals committed to placing patient well-being at the heart of their practice.
CURRICULUM OVERVIEW
What does IPC Pain Week look like?
IPC Pain Week, the flagship educational initiative of the University of Toronto Centre for the Study of Pain (UTCSP), is a three-day immersive learning experience that helps future healthcare professionals develop the skills, awareness, and perspective to respond meaningfully to pain.
Discover how IPC Pain Week can be integrated at your institution
STUDENT TESTIMONIALS
What students had to say about IPC Pain Week
GET STARTED
Transform your institution’s approach to pain management education.
Adopt the University of Toronto’s IPC Pain Week curriculum, crafted for educational institutions to provide an in-depth, interprofessional pain management education. Contact us today to learn how to bring this innovative program to your students.
GET STARTED
Transform your institution’s approach to pain management education.
Adopt the University of Toronto’s IPC Pain Week curriculum, crafted for educational institutions to provide an in-depth, interprofessional pain management education. Contact us today to learn how to bring this innovative program to your students.
LEARN MORE
Got Questions? We've Got Answers!
The intellectual property of the IPC belongs to the University of Toronto’s Centre for the Study of Pain (UTCSP).
While we strongly suggest there are synergistic benefits to the curriculum as a whole, please contact us to discuss implementing components of the IPC Pain Week curriculum in your unique educational setting.
The intellectual property belongs to the UTCSP but it is our goal to advance pain education globally. Please contact us for more information.
You can email us at utcsp@utoronto.ca.
We have run the IPC Pain Week program in hybrid, virtual and in-person formats.
