Pain Management

Compassionate Care While You Sleep

Residents rotate through the Acute Pain Service at MD Anderson Cancer Center. Anesthesia residents and faculty encounter adult and pediatric patients from all surgical specialties, treated with either Patient Controlled Analgesia (PCA), if requested per consultation from the Primary Services, different opioids, epidural continuous (CEA) or patient controlled epidural analgesia (PCEA).

Options for treatment of patients consulted on for chronic pain or acute exacerbation of chronic pain of cancer, or pain of benign etiology, consist of the entire spectrum of pain treatment modalities, including optimization of oral medication, PCA systems, transdermal application, external or internal intraspinal infusion systems, peripheral and central as well as sympathetic nerve blocks, and intravenous infusion therapy. Residents perform under supervision all invasive procedures, with utilization of nerve stimulators and ultrasound:

Regional and Central Analgesic Techniques

Caudal, lumbar and thoracic epidural catheter placement
Peripheral and central somatic nerve blocks
Tunneled catheter placements into various nerve sheaths
TENS trials

It remains our goal to provide an educational and clinical experience that prepares the resident to function as a consultant in Pain Management in matters that will be encountered in future practice and related to:1) the management of patients with pain from cancer and chronic and acute pain of benign etiology, and 2) the management of patients in the perioperative period.

For more information, please contact Krishna Boddu, M.D. kboddu@mdanderson.org