Imagine waking up after successful surgery only to experience moderate-to-severe pain (acute or chronic). For decades, the standard of care (SoC) has been the same for postoperative care: prescribe an opioid. While effective in limiting pain signals, opioids have left behind a baggage of addiction and overdose.
Now, with nearly 10% of post-surgical patients slipping into prolonged opioid use and 85,000 new cases of opioid use disorder annually, the healthcare system faces an urgent call to evolve. Today, the opioid epidemic has become a public health crisis. Declared "national shame" and a public health emergency by President Trump in 2017, the opioid epidemi...
