“Why He Chose Pain Medicine” with Dr. Peter Staats
- Category: Doctor Q&A
- Written By: NSPC Team
Dr. Peter Staats is back with the third installment of the “On Pain” series by Pain Medicine News. In this week’s interview, Dr. Staats discusses why he chose pain medicine and the different roles he’s played since entering the field.
Watch the full interview here.
Dr. Staats entered the field many years ago and was actually the founder of the division of Pain Medicine at Johns Hopkins University. Prior to that, Dr. Staats worked under pain medicine mentors as part of a general anesthesia division. They worked to build out a pain medicine division because the area of pain was so relevant and deserved its own focus.
The idea of treating a patient who is suffering from chronic or acute pain with the same level of attention that a cardiologist treats patients with heart problems drove the vision for this pain medicine division. Thanks to the evolution in the field, pain is the biggest problem we face in the United States, so it needs its own discipline.
Dr. Staats served as the first chair of the ASA Committee of Interventional Pain. The ASA is the largest organization of people who can actually treat pain. He also served as the President of the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians and of NANS (North American Neuromodulation Society), which is something he is very passionate about.
He has also been the president of more local organizations like the New Jersey Society of Interventional Pain Physicians and other pain societies that practice more holistic treatments.
Currently, Dr. Staats is the Chairmen of the Board of Examinations for the World Institute of Pain, where he does a lot of charitable work educating physicians across the world.
These societies are collaborative and have the same goal of wants to improve the science of what doctors do for pain patients.
A Q&A with Dr. Staats also appeared in print in the November issue of Pain Medicine News, which also can be found on our website.
New episodes of “On Pain” will appear every Thursday atPainMedicineNews.com/Multimedia.