A Pain Medicine subspecialist is a medical doctor who treats pain caused by any disease, or trauma. The ultimate goal of the Pain Medicine doctor is to manage acute or chronic pain by reducing pain frequency and intensity and increasing function and quality of life for the patient. Most of these doctors are Neurologists, Anesthesiologists or Physiatrists who receive additional further training at specialized accredited centers, usually University Hospitals.
Julia P was a young grandmother. However, when coming home from the office, she could not longer look forward to an occasional jogging with her dog or to the visits down the road to her daughter’s home. Her lower back pain and the feelings traveling down into her right leg, which have been bothering her for one and a half years, now totally prevented her from an occasional bike ride or from lifting his 3 year old grandchild. She was always in high spirits, but now she would often cry for no apparent reason. But more about her story later. If your symptoms resemble those of Julia, you are not alone. Nearly everyone at some point has back pain that interferes with work, routine daily activities, or recreation. Americans spend at least $50 billion each year on low back pain, the most common cause of job-related disability and a leading contributor to missed work. Back pain is the second most common chronic neurological ailment in the United States — only headache is more common.
Fortunately, most occurrences of low back pain can be easily treated and will go away within a few days. Unfortunately, others take much longer to resolve and pain becomes chronic.
A Pain Medicine subspecialist is a medical doctor who treats pain caused by any disease, or trauma. The ultimate goal of the Pain Medicine doctor is to manage acute or chronic pain by reducing pain frequency and intensity and increasing function and quality of life for the patient. Most of these doctors are Neurologists, Anesthesiologists or Physiatrists who receive additional further training at specialized accredited centers, usually University Hospitals. Specialty boards certify physicians as having met certain published standards. There are 24 specialty boards that are recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) and the American Medical Association (AMA). A subspecialist first must be trained and certified as a specialist.
In order to be certified first as a medical specialist by one of these recognized boards, a physician must complete rigorous requirements. Generally, these include: 1. Completion of a course of study leading to the M.D. or D.O. degree from a recognized School of Medicine. 2. After Medical School graduation, completion of three to seven additional years of full-time training in an accredited residency program designed to train specialists. 3. Sitting for Specialty boards examinations which require extensive assessments of individual performance and competence. 4. Specialty boards require that the person who seeks certification has an unrestricted license to practice medicine and no ethics violations in order to take the certification examination. 5. Some boards require that the doctor has a period of experience in full-time practice in the specialty prior to examination for certification, usually two years following training. 6. Finally, each candidate for certification must pass a one to two day long written examination given by the specialty board. Fifteen of the 24 specialty boards (like Neurology) also require a second oral examination after passing the written exam, conducted by senior specialists in that field. Candidates who have passed the exams and other requirements are then given the status of Board Certified as specialists. A similar process is followed for specialists who want to become subspecialists.
