Artificial Intelligence in Pain Management with Joletta Belton and Daniel Buchman

This past year, the availability of artificial intelligence technology within the healthcare industry has increased exponentially, and the field of pain is certainly feeling its effects.

In this episode of Pain Exchange, our host Dr. Renee Chasse speaks with bioethicist, Dr. Daniel Buchman, and dedicated patient advocate, Joletta Belton, about various ways artificial intelligence is making an impact on the field of pain research and management, as well as potential pitfalls to look out for while exploring this new technology.

The views and opinions expressed by those interviewed are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of IASP. This episode was produced by Peter DelGobbo, who also composed the theme music.

Additional Resources

Belton and Darlow: "Do We Trust Patients in Pain? What Would Happen If We Did?" https://www.jospt.org/doi/10.2519/jospt.2025.13725

Buchman: "AI and the ethics of techno-solutionism in pain management" https://doi.org/10.1097/j.pain.0000000000003389

Ethics and governance of artificial intelligence for health. Guidance on large multi-modal models. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2024. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO. https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/375579/9789240084759-eng.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Katz, Graham, and Buchman: "The need for epistemic humility in AI-assisted pain assessment" https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-025-10264-9

Valor: The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-ai-mirror-9780197759066