The world institute of pain (wip) is an organization of pain physicians which provides members worldwide guidance to help alleviate pain, promote health, provide education and training in pain reduction, and develop protocols and outcome studies in pain management.

Education

In 2017, wip sponsored educational conferences and practical workshops for physicians in miami, usa, nijmegen, netherlands, and budapest, hungary. Additionally, wip endorsed educational programs organized by fipp members on pain medicine with specific emphasis on interventional techniques in sao paulo, brazil; cairo, egypt; london, uk; and miami, florida and dallas, texas, usa. Wip continues to operate as an autonomous entity, independent of any other organization or outside influence, to facilitate the global exchange between physicians who specialize in pain medicine and share a commitment to the advancement of knowledge, and clinical and scientific experience for the benefit of all physicians and patient beneficiaries. wip offered physician specialists in pain medicine the opportunity to demonstrate competency in advanced interventional pain practice by participating in a multi-part exam administered by peers in the profession. Successful candidates were awarded certification as fellows of interventional pain practice (fipp). In 2017, wip and its board of examination certified 86 physicians, raising the total certification count since inception in 2001 to 1,056, representing 58 member countries. Wip's fipp certification examination for physicians alleviates disparities in standards for physician education in the specialty of pain management and, thereby, improving patient care outcomes. wip has presented 25 awards to pain centers qualifying for an excellence in pain practice (epp) award. This voluntary recognition program requires interested pain centers to complete an electronic application describing the clinical and scholarly attributes of the pain center, and to submit to a site visit by a member of wip's inspector's panel. To qualify, the pain center also had to have at least one fipp member practicing at the center. wip provided "pain practice," a scholarly journal, to its members. Subscriptions are a member benefit. Approximately 12% of subscriptions were distributed charitably to physicians who practice in underdeveloped, developing, and emerging countries. These countries include argentina, azerbaijan, bangladesh, bosnia, brazil, chile, china, colombia, costa rica, croatia, czech republic, ecuador, ethiopia, georgia, greece, guatemala, guyana, honduras, hungary, india, indonesia, iran, iraq, jordan, kenya, latvia, lithuania, malawi, malaysia, mauritius, mexico, namibia, nigeria, pakistan, panama, philippines, republic of georgia, romania, russian federation, slovak republic, slovenia, south africa, sri lanka, tanzania, thailand, turkey, ukraine, venezuela, yugoslavia and zambia.