Thank you for your interest in the Brigham and Women's Pain Medicine Fellowship program. We are truly proud of the fellowship experience we offer at our institution. At the core of our program is our commitment to the highest quality medical care in an intellectually stimulating environment. The Brigham's Pain Medicine Division has renowned faculty who are dedicated to the teaching and support of our accomplished fellows.
We are fortunate to have all the resources of the Harvard affiliated hospitals available to us, with an unmatched diversity of clinical cases and outstanding research and public service opportunities. We seek to nurture all the talents of our fellows throughout their training so that they will not only achieve competency in all areas but will go on to become leaders in the field and achieve their highest potential as physicians and researchers. We also seek to foster a collegial and supportive atmosphere.
Please find more information about our faculty, curriculum and facilities on this website and we look forward to hearing from you.
Mohammed Issa, MD
Pain Medicine Fellowship Program Director
Department of Anesthesia, Perioperative and Pain Medicine
Pain Medicine Fellowship Program Director
Department of Anesthesia, Perioperative and Pain Medicine
If you are interested in our Pain Medicine Fellowship, please contact:
Mohammed Issa, MD
Pain Medicine Fellowship Program Director
missa1@bwh.harvard.edu
Alexander J. Kim, MD
Pain Medicine Fellowship Associate Program Director
akim30@partners.org
Aymee Beaudoin
Fellowship Program Manager
abeaudoin1@bwh.harvard.edu
Our Pain Medicine Fellowship accepts ten fellows each year into a comprehensive training program stressing compassionate, appropriate, and knowledge-based care, practice-based learning and improvement, interpersonal communication skills, professionalism and systems-based practice.
Training in the Center for Pain Medicine provides full immersion in the multidisciplinary facets of pain assessment and treatment in both inpatient and outpatient situations. Our center includes staff with backgrounds in anesthesiology, physiatry, neurology, psychiatry, psychology, emergency medicine, acupuncture, and nursing. The Center for Pain Medicine stresses a true unified approach to evaluation and management of simple and complicated pain problems. Trainees in our program will have the opportunity to gain knowledge and experience from our staff of superb diagnosticians and clinicians, achieve an understanding and comfort with various challenging procedures, and learn how to become leaders in pain medicine.
As the pre-eminent national leader in interventional and surgical techniques for pain control, our centers see more than 20,000 patients annually from both national and international referrals, and perform nearly 1500 procedures per month including more than 580 surgeries per year. In addition to gaining expertise in the technical aspects of performing procedures, secondary to no other training program, our residents and fellows will learn practice management techniques such as understanding and managing patients with difficult psycho-social problems, palliative care and end-of-life medicine, efficient office management skills, and quality improvement paradigms.
As a primary provider of pain management services for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, and an integral part of the Pain and Palliative Care Team, our Center for Pain Medicine offers residents and fellows opportunities to become skilled in cancer pain assessment and management of patients with intractable pain at end of life. This service includes palliative care oncologists, ethicists, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, and pastoral support among members of the multidisciplinary team. In addition, our Center for Pain Medicine is renown for providing innovative and comprehensive education in the many modalities available for pain control. This innovation is supported by research activities that are done in our associated Clinical Trials Center. Residents and fellows will have learning opportunities for clinical research for chronic and acute pain.
Our Mission: To create an innovative educational curriculum for trainees in interventional pain management, with the goal developing and advancing their technical skills, knowledge and comfort with fluoroscopic guided interventional pain procedures. Our Simulation Center provides a hands-on, cadaver-based simulation approach to learning throughout the course of the fellowship. Each simulation session comprises a formal debriefing as well as a technical didactic lecture to enhance the hands-on portion of this training method.
Directors: Danielle Sarno, MD
The broad clinical exposure includes the comprehensive evaluation and management of patients with varying complexity, interventions ranging from headache blocks to fluoroscopically guided injections, and a significant surgical experience.
Fellows rotate through the inpatient service, Neurology, Psychiatry/physiatry, Veteran Affairs outpatient pain center, Boston Children’s Hospital, Palliative Care, and outpatient Pain Management Centers at Brigham and Women’s, Faulkner Hospital, and Foxborough. During the rotations, fellows are exposed to a wide array of diagnoses including headaches, neck and low back pain, spasticity, cancer pain, pelvic pain, post-surgical pain, etc. Surgically, fellows will have exposure and first hand experience with intrathecal pumps, spinal cord stimulators, dorsal root ganglion simulation, peripheral stimulation, Superion spinal spacers, minimally invasive lumbar decompression, venous ablation, regenerative medicine, and much more.
Q. What are the annual salary and benefits like?
A. The starting salary for a PGY-5 in 2022 is $86,500. Employment benefits include health, dental, disability and other insurance. For more information please refer to FREIDA and the Mass General Brigham Office of Resources for Trainees.
Q. Can you give me some information about trainee contracts?
A. Please refer to the Trainee Contract section of our website.
Q: Do you offer an education allowance?
A. Yes, we do offer an education allowance of $2,000.
Q: Do you sponsor Visas?
A. At this time, our institution sponsors both H1b and J1 Visas.
Q. Is moonlighting available?
A. Moonlighting is available within the Mass General Brigham System to residents at the CA-2 level of training or higher. Fellows need permission from the Program Director and must have obtained a full medical license, Massachusetts Controlled Substances Registration (MCSR) and Federal DEA numbers. Moonlighting Fellows cannot be on a J1 Visa.
Selection to the fellowship is highly competitive. Only completed applications are reviewed.
The following information must be submitted to ERAS:
The Brigham and Women’s Hospital Pain Medicine Fellowship Participates in the National Residency Matching Program (NRMP).
NRMP Number: 1265530F0
The ERAS 2024 application season for December Application Cycle programs runs from December 6th, 2023 to May 31st, 2024 to fill positions beginning in July 2025.
Please check back later for the application deadline and match result announcement dates for the 2024-2025 academic year. Applications are reviewed and interviews are conducted 12 to 18 months prior to the start date of the fellowship.
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