Fellowship in Multidisciplinary Pain Medicine

Welcome to the Fellowship Training Program in Pain Medicine at the University of California Irvine Medical Center. The Pain Medicine training program at UCI is the first of its kind. Ours is a one year ACGME accredited program that is directed by both Anesthesiology and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation leadership at the same time. Truly interdisciplinary, you will become an expert at interventional pain management, opioid and adjunctive medication management, as well as non-interventional pain management. Personalized physical and occupational therapy, offloading therapy, electro-acupuncture, electrodiagnostics, psychological / cognitive therapies, and regional anesthesia are common treatment modalities used at UCI. You will be well prepared to treat patients holistically!

UCI has ACGME accredited residency training programs in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Neurology, Anesthesiology, Radiology and Psychiatry and a progressive Palliative Care division. With a renewed focus on multi-specialty training, each Fellow will rotate through rehabilitation medicine, anesthesiology, neuroradiology, palliative care, neurology, and psychiatry. As a level I trauma center, a stroke center and the only academic pain program in Orange County, we guarantee your Fellowship training will be excellent.

The leadership team includes Dr. Justin Hata, Director of Pain Medicine, and Dr. Danielle Perret, Director of the Fellowship Training Program in Pain Medicine. Both trained in rehabilitation medicine and attended ACGME sponsored Anesthesiology-based Pain Medicine fellowships. Having been trainees themselves under both Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Anesthesiology departments, they understand the challenges of integrating the fields. At UCI, fellows will also train under several excellent anesthesiology-based pain physicians. Dr. Jane Ahn runs a busy Acute Pain Service that will provide Fellows exposure to a high volume and a large variety of ultrasound guided nerve blocks. Our department is integrated with the Long Beach Veterans Affairs Hospital and sponsors a clinical pediatric pain laboratory (Dr. Zeev Kain) and a basic pain research laboratory (Dr. Z. David Luo). Dr. Eric Chang is our Physician Scientist & Fellowship Research Liaison; he has a special interest in spinal cord injury and neuropathic pain. Our extended faculty also includes Dr. Michelle Fortier, pain psychologist, who is also an accomplished pediatric pain research scientist and Dr. Leif Havton, a neurologist who specializes in neurorehabilitation and translational research. Our program also includes an adult pain psychologist, Dr. Timothy Sams, and a specialist in acupuncture and holistic medicine.

Our program has historically trained a dual-team of one Anesthesiology and one Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Fellow per year. The Fellows have worked extremely well together; teaching each other their unique perspective on diagnosis and treatment in the field of pain medicine based on their training in their respective fields.

Imagine a program with two Fellows, one anesthesiology trained and one Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation trained. Imagine a program directed by Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation trained interventional physiatrists and sponsored by an Anesthesiology department. Imagine Fellow education with equal emphasis and equal attending instruction on anesthesiology-based and rehabilitation medicine-based pain medicine. Imagine competency in basic and advanced interventional techniques, medical pain management, musculoskeletal ultrasound, electro diagnostics, spasticity management, psychological management (including cognitive behavioral therapy and meditation therapies) with training in personalized occupational and physical therapy prescription writing, the use of the physical modalities, exercise techniques, acupuncture, prosthetics, orthotics and even regional anesthesiology techniques. The future is here.

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For more information or to contact one of our pain staff, please use the link www.ucipain.com

For more information, please email Susie Downing at sdowning@uci.edu.