Fellowship Training Program:
Fellowship in Pain Medicine

Overview

Mission Statement & History

Provide world-class education to physicians in multidisciplinary pain medicine who will then meet the needs of the community and beyond, by advancing the art and science of pain medicine and assume leadership in the field.

The University of Washington’s history of leadership in pain medicine began in 1960 when Dr. John Bonica started the world’s first multidisciplinary pain clinic. To learn more about Dr. Bonica’s story watch this TED Talk. Since then, the University of Washington has sustained the mission of providing cutting-edge, comprehensive and compassionate pain care. We are an international leader in education, research, as well as public health policy. Our fellows train alongside the people who are changing the face of pain medicine today.

Teaching is Our Passion

As an NIH designated Center of Excellence in Pain Education, multidisciplinary education is our passion. Please visit our Pain Education website for further information.

Learn about life and training in Seattle. Visit our GME's website for Prospective Residents and Fellows.

Visit us on social media: Twitter @PainInTheRain1 or our public Facebook Group: University of Washington Pain Medicine Fellowship.

Vision & Aims

“Integrating science and compassion to relieve pain and suffering”

The Pain Medicine fellowship program is committed to recruiting diverse physicians to meet the changing needs of our patient population. In this context, we are mindful of all aspects of human differences such as socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, spiritual practice, geography, disability, career goals, and age. Our objective is to create a climate that fosters compassion, belonging, respect, and value for all and encourages engagement and connection throughout the program.

The program aims to recruit candidates who demonstrate excellence in academics, leadership and communication; to create an environment of self-directed learning in order to encourage trainees to become effective lifelong learners; to develop pain medicine specialists who are able to thrive, teach, and lead in all areas of pain medicine.

ACGME Accreditation

The University of Washington Pain Medicine Fellowship is a one-year clinical program accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education since 1993.

Program Eligibility & Selection Policy

Eligibility: Applicants must meet the following qualifications to be eligible for appointment to an ACGME accredited program:

All required clinical education for entry into ACGME accredited fellowship programs must be completed in an ACGME accredited residency program, or in an RCPSC-accredited or CFPC-accredited residency program located in Canada. [CPR III.A.2.] The program must receive verification of each entering fellow’s level of competency in the required field using ACGME or CanMEDS Milestones assessments from the core residency program (CPR III.A.2). The program and the American Board of Anesthesiology does not grant exceptions to the fellowship eligibility requirements.

Candidates must ensure they are eligible for a Washington State provider license, be authorized to work in the United States at the time of appointment and meet applicable essential abilities requirements of the program.

Visas:
The Pain Medicine Fellowship Program accepts foreign national physicians who meet the eligibility and selection program requirements. Foreign nationals requiring visa sponsorship must obtain a J-1 visa sponsored by the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG). The UW and Pain Medicine Fellowship program does not generally provide H-1B sponsorship for fellows in its clinical training programs unless the fellow is otherwise ineligible for a J-1 visa.

*Applicants need to request from programs prior to ranking, consideration for H1-B visa. Applicants cannot be ranked or accepted into the fellowship program until the program receives approval by the GME Office and ISO/Academic HR for an H-1B visa sponsorship.

Please see Pain Medicine Fellowship Program Eligibility & Selection Policy (PDF) for more information.

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Clinical Experience

Our pain medicine fellowship offers a close-knit and supportive learning environment that challenges our fellows to become active learners and skilled teachers. While our graduates have the experience and knowledge to perform interventional pain procedures, the UW pain fellowship places heavy emphasis on multimodal interdisciplinary pain care. We have five unique training hospitals in the Seattle area allowing our fellows to experience many different practice environments as they determine what type of environment is right for their future practice.

Training sites:

1. University of Washington Medical Center (UWMC)
2. Harborview Medical Center (HMC)
3. Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System (VA)
4. Seattle Children’s Hospital (SCH)
5. Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA)

Sample Yearly Schedule:

* Fellowship year starts the last week in July.

We value our pain fellows' diverse backgrounds and understand that they have unique training needs and personal goals. With that in mind, we offer fellows to choose a one-month open elective which can be split into two, two-week rotations. Recent samples of electives include:

One-Month Open Elective

Swedish First Hill Comprehensive Clinic Virginia Mason Water’s Edge Pain Institute with Dr. Ruiz Private practice in CA, OK and AZ Pallium India Research

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Didactic Curriculum

Our fellowship offers a unique and rich didactic curriculum based on the ACGME pain medicine requirements. Our fellows benefit from a robust, multi-institutional, multidisciplinary didactic schedule that includes:

1. COVID UPDATE: We are leading a multi-institutional virtual didactic program. This is a series of teaching sessions on Zoom, at 12 pm EST, 9 am PST. Our idea was that during these days when our fellows will necessarily have reduced pain clinic experience, we might be able to compensate by involving the expertise from several pain programs in a series of virtual lectures.
   1. If you are a PD or pain fellow and are interested in participating, please email rdale@uw.edu
2. Fellows' Pain Lecture
   A weekly foundations didactic required for all our fellows using a flip-the-classroom teaching technique. At the beginning of the year each fellow selects topics of interest and works with a faculty member to create a quality, interactive and relevant didactic for the group. The presenting fellow and faculty send out reading/video material ahead of time so everyone is prepared for the discussion-based session.
   You can learn more about the flipped classroom here.
3. Journal/Book Club scheduled every quarter
4. Physical exam workshop weekly
5. Cadaver lab twice per year
6. Telepain once per week
7. Spine conference weekly (optional)
8. Case conference once per month

Fellowship Positions

• There are five fellowship positions available for individuals who have successfully completed a residency accredited by the ACGME by the fellowship start date.
• We also offer a one-year ACGME accredited Pediatric Pain Medicine Fellowship. This position is open to fellowship trained pediatric anesthesiologists, pediatricians, pediatric neurologists, family practice physicians, and child psychiatrists.

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Pediatric Pain Fellowship

The University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Hospital are one of only a handful of programs in the United States offering a fellowship focused specifically on pediatric pain that leads to sub-board eligibility in pain medicine. The program aims to train the next generation of leaders in the field of pediatric pain. The successful graduate will possess the knowledge and skills necessary to diagnose and treat an array of acute, recurrent, and chronic pain problems across pediatric age ranges and developmental levels.

While rooted in the general pain medicine fellowship, the pediatric pain fellow will spend more than half of his or her clinical time immersed in the pediatric setting, gaining experiences that are focused specifically on children and adolescents. A year-long continuity clinic in the pediatric setting is core, as are rotations on the inpatient pain consultation service. There are also key rotations in pediatric regional anesthesia, pediatric neurology, pediatric rehabilitation medicine, pediatric palliative care, and child psychiatry. These experiences, combined with those available at UWMC and Harborview, will provide the trainee with a strong foundation in the diagnosis, medical management, and procedural skills needed to practice pediatric pain medicine. The program will also equip fellows with the skills needed to work with an interdisciplinary team, interface with other pediatric specialists in the care of children with pain or discomfort, and to advocate for enhanced prevention and treatment of pain conditions in infants, children, and adolescents.

Application Process

Applications are accepted via the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS) which is administered by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). The Pain Medicine fellowship program participates in the December match cycle.

Three NRMP tracts for six positions:

1. Pain Medicine (1918530F0)
   • These four positions are open to every specialty eligible to take the Pain Medicine Boards

2. Pain Medicine – Non-Anesthesia (1918530F2)
   • This one position is open to only non-anesthesiologists who are eligible to take the Pain Medicine Boards
   • If you are an interested non-anesthesiologist, you should apply to this position as well as the regular pain medicine position described above.

3. Pain Medicine – Pediatric (1918530F2)
• This one position is open to a pediatrician, pediatric neurologist, or other fellowship trained pediatric specialist such as a pediatric anesthesiologist. If you are interested in this position, please contact our program coordinator separately.

Faculty

Pain Faculty biographies found here.

Pain Faculty teaching profiles found here.

Current Pain Fellows

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Graduates 2009-2019:

NAME	SPECIALTY	RESIDENCY	CURRENT PRACTICE	GRADUATION
Burns, Tracy	Pediatrics	U of CA, Irvine	Irvine, CA	2019
Jayadeva, Vivek	Psychiatry	Harvard Med School	Boston, MA	2019
Hsu, Yu Ninh	Anesthesiology	U of Florida	Seattle, WA	2019
Mandalaywala, Neil	PM&R	NYU Langone Health	New York, NY	2019
Powelson, Lis	Anesthesiology	U of WA	Seattle, WA	2019
Snell, Chris	Anesthesiology	Drexel/Hahnemann University	Oakland, CA	2019
Bettendorf, Erin	Anesthesia	Brigham and Women's	Minnesota	2018
Srivastava, Kriti	Anesthesia	U of WA	Seattle	2018
Kelley, Olivia	Anesthesia	SUNY Downstate	Seattle	2018
Kattalai Kailasam, Vasanth	Psychiatry	Columbia, NY	Bangor, ME	2018
Teckchandani, Shweta	Neurology	UC Davis	San Francisco	2018
Balderamos, Michael	Anesthesia	U of Texas	Texas	2017
Casias, Tim	Anesthesia	U of Colorado	Madison, WI	2017
Chen, Xi	Anesthesia	U of Toledo	Seattle	2017
Kooner, Preetma	Anesthesia	U of WA	Seattle	2017
Manvar, Ankur	Anesthesia	U of IL	North Carolina	2017
Saini, Alpana	Anesthesia	Touro, NV	Arizona	2017
Gray, Burt	PM&R	Wayne State, MI	Florida	2016
Hsu, Amy	Anesthesia	Columbia, NY	Seattle	2016
Lindenberg, David	PM&R	U of MN	California	2016
Massey, Mike	PM&R	Schwab Rehab, IL	Minnesota	2016
Swank, Seth	PM&R	U of MI	Seattle	2016
Jumelle, Patty	Anesthesia	U of IL	Van Buren, AK	2015
Moore, Sean	Psychiatry	Tulane, LA	US Army in Germany	2015
Ng, WeiQing Alan	Anesthesia	U of WA	Seattle, WA	2015
Patri, Murali	Anesthesia	Henry Ford, MI	Detroit, MI	2015
Santos, Jose	PM&R	U of FL	Sioux Falls, SD	2015
Henry-Socha, Nancy	PM&R	U of MN	Brainerd, MN	2014
Shah, Kairav	Psychiatry	Harlem Hospital, NY	Secaucus, NJ	2014
Velan, Tomas	Anesthesia	U of WA	Seattle,  WA	2014
Whetstone, Kirk	PM&R	U of WA	Columbus, OH	2014
Wong, Francis	Anesthesia	Cleveland Clinic, OH	Fremont, CA	2014
Amos, Joseph	PM&R	U of TX	Houston, TX	2013
Choi, Paul	Anesthesia	U of WA	Huntington Beach, CA	2013
Dale, Rebecca	Anesthesia	U of WI	Seattle, WA	2013
Ghandehari, Javid	Anesthesia	Maimonides, NY	Beverly Hills, CA‎	2013
Pollak, Kelly	Anesthesia	U of UT	Seattle, WA	2013
Ruiz, Juan	Anesthesia	Temple, NJ	Yakima, WA	2013
Ahn, Sangmin	PM&	Baylor, TX	St Louis, MO	2012
Brown, Michael	PM&R	SUNY  Stonybrook	Bellevue, WA, Monterey, CA	2012
Krashin, Daniel	Psychiatry	TAMC, HI	Seattle, WA	2012
Lee, Jennifer	Anesthesia	U of WA	Seattle, WA	2012
Montgomery, Kacey	Anesthesia	U of FL	Central FL	2012
Bristow, Sandee	PM&R	U of FL	Miami, FL	2011
Chiu, Sheila	Anesthesia	MetroHealth, OH	Seattle, WA	2011
McQueen, Kit	Anesthesia	U of WA	Seattle, WA	2011
Singh, Virtaj	PM&R	U of WA	Seattle, WA	2011
Balch, Trey	PM&R	Baylor, TX	Fort Worth, TX	2010
Baroumand, Fardad	PM&R	Med College of WI	Los Gatos, CA	2010
Irwin, Dave	Anesthesia	U of FL	Erie, PA	2010
Olamikan, Sola	Anesthesia	SUNY Syracuse	Dallas, TX	2010
Yee, Joyce	Anesthesia	OHSU	Albuquerque, NM	2010
Amin, Neel	Anesthesia	MC of GA	Ft. Lauderdale, FL	2009
Gardyn, Michael	PM&R	Johns Hopkins, MD	Baltimore, MD	2009
Macek, Tom	Anesthesia	U of FL	Fort Lauderdale, FL	2009
Mambalam, Praveen	Anesthesia	Montefiore, NY	Seattle, WA	2009
Perez, Edwin	Anesthesia	NJ Med School	Newark, NJ	2009

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Program Director

Rebecca Dale, DO Assistant Professor, Department of Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine Program Director, Pain Medicine University of Washington Medical Center Box 356540 1959 NE Pacific Street Seattle, WA 98195 Phone: 206-598-5988 Email: rdale@uw.edu UW Medicine Bio

Program Administrator

Miranda Skillin Program Manager Pain Medicine & Critical Care Department of Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine University of Washington Medical Center Box 356540 1959 NE Pacific Street Seattle, WA 98195-6540 Phone: 206-598-5988 E-mail: mskillin@uw.edu

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