Division of Chronic Pain

The Center for Pain Medicine at UMass Memorial provides comprehensive outpatient consultative care for patients with chronic and cancer-related pain. Our practice focuses on developing evidence-based long-term goal-directed therapies aimed to optimize overall functional capabilities and improve pain.

Residents in the department  will rotate on the chronic pain service during their CA-2 year. During this rotation residents will have the opportunity to see and evaluate a wide variety of patients with chronic painful conditions of the spine, pain related to nerve root irritation, chronic regional pain syndrome, occipital neuralgia, post herpetic neuralgia, cancer related pain and arthritic joint pain.

As part of the rotation of the chronic pain service, residents will learn to take a comprehensive pain history, develop comprehensive multidisciplinary care plans for these patients and communicate these plans to the referring provider. Residents will perform various types of injection-based therapies to treat the patients that are seen for an initial consultation.

These injections are performed most commonly under fluoroscopic guidance. Ultrasound is also used in some cases. Therefore, trainees gain further knowledge of spine and joint anatomy over the course of the rotation.

The most common procedures residents perform are epidural injections to treat radicular pain secondary to lumbar degenerative disk disease. Residents will also perform facet injections, radiofrequency ablation, joint injections and myofascial trigger point injections. Residents are exposed to more complex injection-based procedures such stellate ganglion blocks and lumbar sympathetic blocks.

We provide bedside teaching in order for the trainee to learn in real time as they evaluate patients. We also provide recommended reading from textbooks and primary literature to further enhance the learning experience.

An elective is available to CA-3 residents to further hone the skills learned during the initial rotation.