Stanford Pain Medicine

Dive into the world of pain with with our own Dr. Sean Mackey! Listen to the podcast episode to explore invisible diseases, validation of pain, and groundbreaking treatments.

🎙️💡 Pain isn’t just a symptom; it's a deeply personal experience. Join us with Dr. Sean Mackey on the Good Life Project as we explore the "invisible disease" of chronic pain and the innovative approaches to treatment that are transforming lives

https://www.goodlifeproject.com/podcast/understanding-your-unique-experience-of-pain-a-neuroscientists-approach-sean-mackey/

We hope everyone has a great weekend 🍕

Does social media make medical providers more biased, and if so, how might implicit prejudice influence their treatment of patients? Our fellow, Sisi Xie recently explored this topic in her LEAD presentation, titled “You Are What You Eat: De-Influencing Bias in Social Media Consumption.”

Occurring during Stanford Medicine’s Diversity & Inclusion Forum, Dr. Xie’s lecture first identified how implicit bias from social media scrolling impacts minority patient care. Her group then demonstrated a best-practice framework for mitigating social media-induced bias, even analyzing examples of social content through the lens of the framework.

Millions of Americans still live with pain due to few treatment options and scarce data on their efficacy. In reflecting on this issue, Stanford Pain’s Dr. Vafi Salmasi had to wonder: “how can we gather more people and more data to help pain patients faster?” His recent study findings are promising: a new patient-centric research method called “Pragmatic Comparative Effectiveness Trials (CETs)” may be the ticket to better pain care.

“These novel designs study how treatments work in real world application,” he explains. “When well-embedded in routine clinical care, we can study a large number of patients at a much lower cost compared to more traditional explanatory clinical trials.” It’s noteworthy that the broader diversity of pragmatic CETs also makes results applicable to a greater number of people.

Salmasi hopes these strides in pain research give patients a sense of hope. “I hope we can make meaningful advances in understanding and better treating chronic pain,” he shared. “Sharing knowledge about their condition in a study is one way for patients to make life better for themselves and others with chronic pain.”

Full story: https://shorturl.at/NqcC8

Did you know proper nutrition can act as a chronic pain treatment when part of a comprehensive plan? Learn how the foods you eat can make your chronic pain better (or worse) with Stanford fellow Christabel Jaiyeola. 🥕

Reply below with your questions about nutrition & pain: shorturl.at/SFY2j

Get to know Stanford's Dr. Anuj Aggarwal, who recently received the 2024 Medical Education Teaching Award. 👇

Dr. Aggarwal got his start in education as an undergraduate teaching math and science to K-12 students in Los Angeles. He fell in love with seeing that “click” as students began to understand the world around them.

During residency and fellowship at Stanford, there was a national push to increase pain education, prompting him to get involved with a working group on Pain Medicine and Addiction Education at Stanford while also teaching lectures in the Pharmacological Treatment of Disease (PTD) course led by Dr. Kobilka. One of the greatest lessons learned during his tenure is to share excitement with students.

“We, as teachers, are sometimes so focused on what students need to know and finding what they would find interesting that we forget to show our own excitement,” he shares. “Our enthusiasm goes a long way toward engaging the learner!

Our fellows enjoying their DRG (dorsal root ganglion) stimulation practice at an Abbott lab in Southern California!

Living with chronic pain? Consider joining our study, which will help establish what is "meaningful change" to a person living with chronic pain. https://shorturl.at/opSzW

Did you know Stanford has a driving range? Our fellows recently took some much-deserved time to relax and work on their golf swings ⛳️ Just one of the many ways our community enjoys nature in the Bay Area!

For his outstanding contributions to the medical education space, our own Dr. Anuj Aggarwal has won the 2024 Medical Education Teaching Award. Congratulations to Dr. Aggarwal on this well-deserved honor!

Check out this behind-the-scenes glimpse of what our fellows are up to! Sprint peripheral nerve stimulation lab in San Francisco 🩻

We are rolling out the PROGRESS pain relief study to test two evidence-based pain relief skills treatments that patients can receive online and from home at no cost. Learn what makes this study “uniquely Stanford:” https://shorturl.at/mrM13

TDS support is key for PROGRESS pain relief study This article appeared previously in StanfordMed TODAY

Our fellow Sisi Xie is presenting her LEAD project on bias in social media at Stanford Medicine’s Diversity & Inclusion Forum! Join her session to be a better change agent for DEI in the medical field. https://shorturl.at/dFQV7

📅 When: Friday May 10th, 2024 from 9:30-10:45 am

📍 Where: Berg Hall in Li Ka Shing Learning and Knowledge Berg Hall in Li Ka Shing Learning and Knowledge Center

❓ What: “You Are What You Eat: De-Influencing Implicit Bias in Social Media Consumption.”

“My journey to pain management was inspired by a family member's struggle with chronic pain after spine surgery,” says former Stanford fellow Dr. Zachary Landman. “My goal is to provide the same ‘Stanford’ level of interventional pain management in an accessible, caring fashion to my hometown community in the East Bay.”

Now an interventional pain management physician at Sutter East Bay Medical Group in Berkeley, CA, Landman is making good on his word. In true Stanford form, he blends interdisciplinary approaches to best fit each patient. “As I often say,” he quips, “I practice as much neurosurgery and orthopedics as I do psychology.”

Landman considers Stanford Pain’s fellowship to be the most transformational experience of his career. “The community of world leaders across fields like pain psychology, neuromodulation and subspecialties like pelvic pain are not only experts in providing patient care, but also in teaching the next generation of leaders,” he says. “Becoming a Stanford Pain Fellow enters you into a lifelong community of colleagues and mentors who are dedicated to providing the best possible outcomes for patients.”

“The Stanford Pain Fellowship’s total mind and body approach to treatment of patients with chronic pain has continued to guide my practice and how I instruct future fellows,” says former fellow Anuj Malhotra, who graduated in 2012. Back then, Malhotra hoped the fellowship would prepare him to provide excellent clinical care and to be a leader in expanding that care. As the Director of the Division of Pain Management at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, his dream has materialized.

“I am able to shape the ethos of our department, ensure excellence in orthopedic pain care, and further the direction of the field through research collaboration and global health initiatives in chronic pain,” he reflects. While Stanford Pain Fellowship’s multidisciplinary structure influenced Malhotra in many ways, one experience stands out.

“SCIPP is a unique feature of the Stanford Pain fellowship that provides a rare opportunity to make significant change for a patient with chronic pain in a supportive environment, change that would take months or more in an outpatient setting and might otherwise not happen,” Malhotra says of Stanford’s Comprehensive Interdisciplinary Pain Program. “The experience reinforces the improvement we can make in patients’ lives.”

Our team enjoyed sharing their research at USASP 2024 in Seattle! From Postdoctoral Scholar Merve Kaptan’s reappraisal of pain in fibromyalgia patients to Fellow Samsuk Kim’s insights on how trauma impacts pain, the future of pain care was explored through a diverse lens.

Everyone wants a healthy pregnancy, safe childbirth, & successful bonding during the perinatal period, but how can expectant parents strive for it? Here are 4 things to know about having a healthy and pain(less) pregnancy.

"Some of those procedures, some of those surgeries, clearly are not helping people," Dr. Sean Mackey says of TMJ treatments. Learn why TMJ isn't well-understood and explore efforts to improve care:

The horrors of TMJ: Chronic pain, metal jaws, and futile treatments TMJ disorders affect as many as 1 in 10 Americans and yet remain poorly understood and ineffectively treated. Many common treatments used by dentists lack scientific evidence.

Meet Stanford Pain Fellow, Trey Vanek!

-Prior to joining Stanford, Trey earned a degree in neuroscience and completed a residency in Anesthesiology. 🧠

-Stanford’s exposure to a diverse range of procedures and the opportunity to learn from leading experts across all facets of pain medicine, emphasizing a comprehensive approach, attracted him to the fellowship.

-One of the pivotal skills Trey has gained from his fellowship experience thus far is the adept application of anatomical knowledge to innovative, diverse procedures.

-Trey’s future career aspirations revolve around teaching residents and fellows in Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine.

-Beyond his professional pursuits, Trey finds enjoyment in fitness, WVU and Pittsburgh sports, and the outdoors—especially exploring the Bay Area alongside his co-fellows.

From headaches to musculoskeletal pain, about a quarter of children suffer from chronic pain at some point. While childhood chronic pain is tougher to manage, professor Laura Simons says new behavioral health treatments seem to work. Learn more:

The future of pediatric pain An expert on pain explains why chronic pain in childhood is more common than believed and, if left untreated, it can lead to lifelong suffering. Fortunately, innovative behavioral health treatments offer hope.

Knowledge is power, so we’re excited to share the 2024 edition of the ACPA-Stanford Resource Guide to Chronic Pain Management, created with The American Chronic Pain Association. If you’re living with pain, explore this free, reliable resource:

The 2024 ACPA-Stanford Resource Guide for Chronic Pain Management: A comprehensive, free resource for people in pain Newly revised release of the American Chronic Pain Association-Stanford Resource Guide to Chronic Pain Management