Summary

By 2007, a once-groundbreaking pain management clinic founded by former professional wrestler John Bonica in Seattle lay dilapidated and barely breathing. Despite the fleeting popularity among the medical community of palliative, multi-sectional treatment for pain as championed by Bonica’s clinic, insurance companies “gradually stopped paying for the services that made the clinics multidisciplinary” such as psychological and occupational therapy (253). The clinic was on its fifth interim-director when Alex Cahana stepped in to revamp the facility with windows, soft-colored walls, and a “bullpen” for professionals to openly share ideas (254). Cahana aimed at restoring palliative care, but faced the same problem of doctors’ past; “talk therapy is reimbursed at fifteen dollars an hour… But for me to stick a needle in you I can get eight hundred to five thousand dollars. The system values things that aren’t only not helpful but sometimes harmful to patients...