In Memory of Two Pain Warriors
/By Pat Anson, PNN Editor
The pain community is mourning the loss of two of its most dedicated advocates this Memorial Day weekend: Terri Lewis and Jeffrey Fudin.
Dr. Fudin was a clinical pharmacist who specialized in pain management at the Stratton VA Medical Center in Albany, New York. He was also a prolific researcher, blogger and mentor to other clinicians. Fudin died Friday at the age of 63 after a lengthy battle with Stage 4 colon cancer.
Fudin spent much of the past year visiting with family and friends, displaying an extraordinary amount of courage, grace and humor as his prognosis worsened. He even managed to work a few laughs into his own obituary, which he penned himself.
“Seriously, you thought I was going to leave you all without a final post from the grave? If you’re reading this, I am now resting comfortably and hopefully watching over those I most cherished while on earth,” Fudin wrote.
“Someplace there is a lemon tree that will bear fruit from the earth. That sour fruit will provide joy and perhaps lemonade to those I leave behind.”
JEFFREY FUDIN
Terri Lewis’ battle with cancer was shorter and her passing unexpected. She died Saturday at the age of 70 from complications caused by chemotherapy for metastatic melanoma.
Dr. Lewis was a rehabilitation specialist and educator who specialized in disabilities and mental health. She traveled regularly to Taiwan, where she was an Assistant Professor at National Changhua University of Education.
Lewis was a prolific researcher on issues affecting the pain community, which she shared freely with other advocates and reporters. She and Fudin helped me understand many complex issues when I first started covering pain management a decade ago.
“Terri was one of the most staggeringly intelligent people I have ever met. I remain in awe of her ability to identify and wrangle large data sets and to discern meaningful trends and relationships in healthcare processes with levels of complexity which overwhelm me,” said patient advocate Rose Bigham.
“She was generous with her time, coached and collaborated with many other pain patients and advocates, and was a fierce defender of her adult son who had been neglected and abused by multiple healthcare systems and providers due to his complex health conditions. She was relentless. She taught so many of us to never give up, and to be unafraid of tackling the big problems.”
TERRI LEWIS
“Terri Lewis was a force; her enthusiasm was inspiring, and I think that enthusiasm helped struggling patients keep hope alive and continue to fight, myself included. I am so grateful for all she taught me,” said Anne Fuqua. “There was one day where I was worried sick about a friend with muscular dystrophy who was on a ventilator. His physician had decided to take advantage of having him admitted for IV antibiotics and use this as an opportunity to taper his opioids and he planned to do this over the period of one week. Terri knew exactly who to ask for – and in less than 2 hours the taper was aborted.
“The very best those of us who loved Terri can do is to use what she taught us to help fellow patients as well as ourselves. I hope we can do a tenth the good she did in her lifetime.”
‘They Were Heroes’
It’s an overused expression, but Lewis and Fudin really were “pain warriors” who worked hard to dispel the many myths that surround the use of opioid medication. They risked their careers and reputations while opioid hysteria gripped the nation, patients were abandoned, and doctors were prosecuted for treating pain. When others looked away, Lewis and Fudin stood up to defend them.
“They were heroes,” says Dr. Mark Ibsen, who fought to regain his medical license after he was suspended by the Montana medical board for “overprescribing” opioids.
“Terri was a tireless and relentless advocate and teacher. She understood the malfeasance of targeting doctors by the abuse of dating mining,” Ibsen told PNN. “They use these data banks to predict diversion and prescribing ‘outside the usual course of medical practice’ even though nothing of the sort is proven.”
Much of Fudin’s advocacy was focused on ending the “pseudoscience” of using morphine milligram equivalents (MME) to measure the risks and effectiveness of an opioid – which illogically presumes that every patient and every opioid are identical.
“Jeffrey Fudin debunked the false equivalency of MME levels, noting the bogus assertion that ‘one size fits all’ does not apply to the complexities of human biochemistry and pharmacology,” said Ibsen.
Fudin’s funeral will be held on June 1 in Albany. In lieu of flowers, it was Fudin’s wish that any memorial tributes be made in the form of a tax deductible donation to the Dr. Jeffrey Fudin Memorial Foundation.
A Terri Lewis Memorial has also been established at the Arachnoiditis & Chronic Meningitis Collaborative Research Network (ACMCRN), a non-profit that Lewis helped found and where she was VP of Research..
RIP Terri and Jeff.
