The UPMC Pain Management Program is a multidisciplinary clinical, teaching, and research endeavor spread over eight clinic locations: UPMC St. Margaret, Centre Commons in East Liberty, Oakland campus, Monroeville, UPMC Passavant, UPMC Mercy, UPMC Horizon, and UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. Both outpatient and inpatient hospital treatment services are provided at each of these locations. The program is committed to the evaluation and treatment of the entire range of pain, disability, and rehabilitation problems, from infancy to old age, including end-of-life care. It offers an interdisciplinary team approach that includes dedicated professionals from various specialties including anesthesiology, neurology, psychiatry, nursing, occupational therapy, physical therapy, and psychology. 

UPMC Pain Management offers a one-year fellowship program that is fully accredited by the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). Fellows rotate through the outpatient services at UPMC St. Margaret, Centre Commons, Oakland campus, Monroeville, and UPMC Passavant and provide inpatient consultation at UPMC St. Margaret, UPMC Shadyside, UPMC Mercy, WPIC, UPMC Passavant, UPMC Montefiore, and UPMC Presbyterian. The program also has an active and well-funded research arm.

The anchor of the fellowship program is the strong didactic curriculum. This includes weekly Grand Rounds by board-certified faculty, a pain medicine board review series, as well as journal clubs and Morbidity and Mortality conferences.

The fellowship program was a winner of the American Academy of Pain Medicine’s 2016 Pain Medicine Fellowship Excellence Award and is the only program in the country that has received a maximum five-year ACGME accreditation three consecutive times. There are currently nine available fellowship positions per year. Our graduates go on to fill positions in coveted practices and locations across the country. 

The program encompasses the full spectrum of clinical training, from spine pain interventional management to more complex interventional procedures such as spinal cord stimulation, interventional management of abdominal and pelvic pain, and interventional management of facial pain. Radiofrequency ablation techniques and ultrasound-guided procedures are also emphasized. A multimodal, multidisciplinary strategy of pain management is a key part of the program. 

During fiscal year 2020, Pain Medicine Program physicians from the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine logged over 30,000 visits. For more clinical information about the program, please visit our clinical website.