Membership
APS Member Spotlight
Featured in the November 2010 Issue of ENews
Kevin Vowles, PhD
Consultant Clinical Psychologist
The Haywood Hospital
Stoke-on-Trent NHS Primary Care Trust
Stoke-on-Trent, United Kingdom
What is your area of specialty?
I am a clinical psychologist specializing in chronic pain rehabilitation. My research and clinical work concentrates on the facilitation of effective and meaningful functioning in people with chronic pain, as well as on the identification of the processes by which treatments for chronic pain work.
What initially sparked your interest in working in your field? Briefly describe your career path.
I was fortunate enough to have a class in Behavioral Medicine while an undergraduate at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and was immediately drawn to the area. I later approached the course instructor, Brent Van Dorsten, about doing a placement within his pain clinic, to which he kindly agreed. This placement illustrated for me the many challenges of chronic pain treatment. I am not aware of any other patient group where there is such suffering and need for demonstrably effective therapies to allow patients to regain important and meaningful functioning in their lives.
What has been a highlight of your work? Perhaps you and your staff are proud of a certain project or accomplishment.
I am aware that it sounds like a cliché, but I am humbled and amazed every time I see someone we treat drop the struggle for pain control and get back to the business of living. Of course, it has also been rewarding to demonstrate these outcomes in journals and present them at scientific meetings.
Is there a particular challenge that you’ve either overcome or hope to address soon?
In the 34 years that have elapsed since Fordyce’s Behavioral Methods for Chronic Pain and Illness (1976), we have made some nice gains, yet a significant number of challenges remain. For example, we are still not clear on the processes by which rehabilitative, or psychological, treatments for pain work, and we also continue to struggle with the dissemination and implementation of these empirical treatment methods by our professional colleagues and funding bodies (both here in the UK and in the US). I believe our work, alongside that of others, has gone some distance towards addressing these challenges.
Who is your favorite role model—and why?
I have been fortunate enough to work with a number of brilliant colleagues over the years. My good friends and colleagues Lance McCracken and Chris Eccleston are the epitome of professionals conducting incisive and forward-thinking research. In addition, I remember seeing Mark Jensen at a workshop and being incredibly impressed by his compassionate and heartfelt approach to both science and clinical work.
