Pain Medicine

The University of Maryland Division of Pain Medicine employs a multidisciplinary team approach to provide compassionate and comprehensive services to reduce pain, promote coping strategies, and improve function and the quality of life. Faculty members encourage active involvement of patients in their treatment and tailor therapies to individual needs. Such therapies may include a combination of opioids, adjunctive medications, interventional therapies, psychological support, and physical therapy.

The University of Maryland Pain Management Center, located at the University of Maryland Rehabilitation and Orthopaedic Institute, strives to improve the patient experience and is continually initiates performance improvement projects to enhance efficiency and improve patient satisfaction. The results of patient level of satisfaction surveys, sent after each visit, factor prominently in this process.

The Division of Pain Medicine contributes in multiple ways to the Department of Anesthesiology educational mission. Anesthesiology residents spend one to two months rotating in Pain Medicine during their three-year residency program. Interested residents may apply to the Division’s ACGME-accredited Pain Medicine Fellowship, which offers specialized anesthesiology education in the management of chronic pain using medication as well as fluoroscopic and ultrasound-guided approaches.

Consultations are provided with referral from the patient’s primary care physician or any specialist currently treating the patient. We also welcome referrals from physicians for specific procedures. Referring physicians should complete the Physician Referral/Request Form and fax it to the Pain Management Center. The patient will then be called and scheduled for an appointment.

Interventional Pain Procedures

Lumbar, thoracic, and cervical epidural steroid injections
Epidural blood patch
Lumbar selective nerve root block
Cervical selective nerve root block (diagnostic only)
Lumbar and cervical facet blocks
Lumbar and cervical radiofrequency ablation
Sacroiliac joint injection
Sacroiliac joint radiofrequency ablation
Lumbar and cervical discogram
Kyphoplasty
Ganglion impar block
Stellate ganglion block
Superior hypogastric block
Celiac plexus block
Lumbar sympathetic block
Hip and knee injection
Shoulder Injections
Genicular nerve blocks
Intercostal nerve block
Trigger point injections
Botox injections for migraines

Advanced Analgesic Techniques

Spinal cord stimulation (trial and implant)
Peripheral nerve stimulation (trial and implant)
Intrathecal therapy for cancer related pain (trial and pump implant)
Intravenous lidocaine infusion for neuropathic pain

The Acute Pain Management Service (APMS) provides comprehensive consultations for adult and pediatric inpatients. Patients with complex medical or surgical conditions that present with pain symptoms are treated by a team that includes attending anesthesiologists, pain medicine fellows, anesthesiology residents and pain management nurses. The majority of patients on this service are post-surgical; others have cancer pain, chronic pain or other painful conditions, such as pancreatitis, trauma, burns and sickle cell disease. Care may include intravenous patient-controlled analgesia (PCA), oral analgesics and co-analgesics (e.g. opioids, NSAIDS, antidepressants and anticonvulsants), various nerve blocks and continuous epidural/intrathecal analgesia (caudal, lumbar and thoracic). Pre-operative epidural catheters are placed for appropriate surgery patients (e.g. abdominal and thoracic surgery).

Postoperative analgesic care following elective total joint replacement and other orthopedic procedures is provided by the acute pain management service at University of Maryland Rehabilitation & Orthopaedic Institute. Nursing protocols for this service are written and followed under the medical direction of the University of Maryland Pain Management Center and in collaboration with the Anesthesiology Division at University of Maryland Rehabilitation & Orthopaedic Institute. Consultation is also provided to rehabilitation inpatients requiring analgesic modification. Complex pain management problems are referred to the Pain Management Center for inpatient evaluation. Pain Resource Nurses are available on off-shifts and week-ends to provide continuity of analgesic protocols.