The NIH Pain Consortium is in the process of establishing “Centers of Excellence for Pain Education” at Medical, Dental, Pharmacy, and Nursing schools across the Nation, in an effort to give health care professionals a solid understanding of pain as part of their basic education, with the aim of improving pain treatment while reducing the risk of prescription opioid abuse. These Centers will establish curriculum on pain which will be used in courses at these Centers, and the adoption of these curricula at other academic institutions will be encouraged by various form of outreach.