Published in UAB Insight, Winter 2008
Consultation for Pain Management
The recently opened Pain Treatment Clinic at UAB Highlands offers consultative services for acute and chronic pain management. Created by UAB’s Department of Anesthesiology, the clinic provides comprehensive services for pain management with an emphasis on interventional injection procedures.
UAB Department of Anesthesiology Alfred Habeeb Chair Keith A. (Tony) Jones, MD, says, “We have created a system that enables responsive, rapid access for patients who need evaluation and treatment of chronic pain as well as treatment of perioperative pain following surgery or trauma.”
Anesthesiologist Aimee H. Walsh, MD, is clinic medical director. Attending physicians are anesthesiologists Jason L. McKeown, MD; Peter A. Nagi, MD; Timothy J. Ness, MD, PhD; Thomas R. Vetter, MD, MPH; Anne V. Xavier, MD; and physiatrist Hassan H. Monfared, MD. Karen Stewart is clinic manager, a new position created to provide optimal access for referring physicians’ patients. “Pain is one of the most common complaints for which patients seek health care, so our clinic fills a much needed niche,” Walsh says.
Interventional Procedures
The clinic specializes in chronic neck and back pain, spinal stenosis, disc problems, degenerative joint disease, chronic pancreatitis, cancer-related pain, perioperative pain disorders, and myofascial disorders. Clinic physicians treat complex pain syndromes with procedures that include epidural steroid injections, joint and bursa injections, muscular trigger point injections, peripheral nerve blocks, sacroiliac joint injections, stellate ganglion blocks, sympathetic nervous system blockade, and radiofrequency ablation.
Physicians perform all treatments on an outpatient basis. “These procedures are less invasive than surgery and more proactive than medication,” Walsh says. “We are primarily an interventional clinic but also can work with referring physicians to adjust their patients’ medications. Our goal is to help people return to a happy and productive lifestyle.”
The clinic’s streamlined referral system is designed to quickly accommodate community physicians’ patients, and most appointments are scheduled within a week of referral. Physicians usually can arrange access to the clinic within 24 hours for patients with urgent conditions, Walsh says.
“We have doubled our number of physicians in the last year, and the new facilities accommodate more patients,” Stewart says. “Increased patient access, along with convenient parking, allows us to better serve our patients.”
Cutting-edge Care
Outcomes research conducted by clinic physicians “allows us to incorporate the newest, most effective therapies into clinical care,” Ness says. Ongoing research includes studies of organ injury, free radical biology, cell signaling, and sensory neurobiology.
The clinic also offers an integrative approach to pain management for patients “who have reached the end of the road in terms of conventional modalities, but still struggle with issues such as diffuse muscle pain,” says Vetter, who trained in acupuncture at the University of California-Los Angeles and completed the Clinical Training Program in Mind-Body Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
For more information:
Dr. Thomas Vetter
Dr. Aimee Walsh
1.800.UAB.MIST
mist@uabmc.edu