2019 Wilbert E. Fordyce Clinical Investigator Award
Raymond C. Tait, PhD
Raymond Tait is Professor and Acting Chair in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience at Saint Louis University. A clinical psychologist, he has been active in the pain field for 40 years as a clinician, program administrator, and researcher. In 1982, he founded a chronic pain treatment program at the School of Medicine, the success of which convinced him that chronic pain is best treated through a multidisciplinary approach. In the course of his clinical work, he observed numerous instances where patients were evaluated by different providers who often offered diametrically different assessments. That observation led him toward a clinical research program with particular attention to factors that systematically influence observer judgments of pain in others. That focus led to studies of racial/ethnic disparities in the treatment of pain, as well as in the long-term outcomes that patients derived from treatment. More recently, he has studied factors that may account for diverging patient and provider expectations in pain treatment. He presently is interested in the role of provider burden, the responsibilities that providers assume in providing care to chronic pain patients, as a possible mediator of clinical judgments. He also is actively engaged in a Center of Excellence in Pain Education with colleagues at Southern Illinois University – Edwardsville, consistent with his belief that broadening inter-professional training in pain care can reduce the burden of pain borne by both patients and providers.
The Wilbert E. Fordyce Clinical Investigator Award and Lecture was established in 1995 to recognize and honor career achievement in clinical research on pain. The award has been named for Wilbert E. Fordyce, PhD, the first recipient of this honor.
