Pain Clinic

The outpatient Pain Clinic at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital works with your child and their care team to manage pain problems.

Treatment for serious illness can cause pain. Your child’s may be caused by:

• Tests, treatment, or treatment side effects
• Disease or surgery
• Nerve damage or inflammation
• Chronic conditions

Services we provide

The Pain Clinic offers:

• One-time consults to assess pain and make a plan for managing it
• Long-term follow-ups (as needed) to ensure the pain management plan works for your child

Members of the Pain Clinic will:

• See your child
• Make a plan of care for your child
• Communicate this plan with the care team
• Check on your child’s response in the inpatient setting or the outpatient Pain Clinic

Your Pain Clinic team

The Pain Clinic team helps your child through a referral process. The team includes:

• Anesthesiologists – doctors trained to manage pain and give anesthesia
• Advanced practice nurses
• Nurses
• Psychologists
• Child life specialists
• Physical therapists
• Pharmacists

Pain management services are offered to both inpatients and outpatients. Anesthesiology provides on-call coverage 24 hours a day. Call the main hospital line at 901-595-3300 and ask to speak to the pain physician.

What to expect from the Pain Clinic

Members of the Pain Clinic team may ask your child to rate their level of pain and to keep a pain diary. Our team may use topical medications (placed on the surface of the body) and patches to help with localized pain.

Physical ways to manage pain may include heat, ice packs, massage, or exercise.

Our team has other ways to reduce pain without medicine, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy, guided imagery, relaxation, distraction, or clinical hypnosis.

Learn more

The Pain Clinic is located in the subspecialty clinic on the 1st floor of the Patient Care Center.

You may contact the Pain Clinic at 901-595-5372.