Shared Interest Groups

Shared Interest Groups (SIGs) provide a forum for members to come together and network, discuss, and advance shared interests in a particular field or topic.

Get Involved In AAPM By Joining a Shared Interest Group (SIG)

AAPM recognizes that its members value opportunities to come together for the purpose of sharing their interests as they relate to our specialty.

To provide a forum for this, AAPM has created shared interest groups (SIGs). SIGs meet in-person during the AAPM Annual Meeting and may meet via teleconference at other times throughout the year. SIG meetings at the AAPM Annual Meeting are open to all Annual Meeting attendees.

New SIGs are created by petition signed by a minimum of twelve (12) AAPM members and approval by the AAPM Executive Committee, to ensure alignment with the AAPM mission.

Shared Interest Groups & Participating Members

The following SIGs provide ongoing recommendations to the Board, which are reviewed for alignment with AAPM priorities and budget implications.

Academic Pain Medicine

  • Deliberate mentorship of academic pain clinicians, under the rubric of faculty development;
  • Programmatic and ongoing career development of pain medicine researchers, educators, and academic leaders throughout their careers;
  • The organization of an outstanding academic meeting session at the AAPM Annual Meeting with targeted provision of networking opportunities to academic pain medicine clinicians.

Chair

  • Sean Mackey, MD, PhD

Acute Pain Medicine

  • Lead in developing systems, methods, and interventions to obviate suffering from perioperative and acute pain.
  • Advocate for effective perioperative and acute pain management to limit its chronification, whether from trauma, medical conditions, and/or surgical operations by advancing the science and practice of acute pain medicine.

Chairs

  • Kara Segna, MD
  • Hassan Rayaz, MD

Acute Pain and Emergency Medicine

  • Dedicated to teaching multimodal pain management techniques to manage acute pain that presents in outpatient clinics, hospital emergency departments, and/or urgent cares through medication optimization and regional anesthesia.    

Chairs

  • Jessica Oswald, MD, MPH
  • Jonathan Lee, MD

APRNs/PAs in Pain Medicine

  • Provide a professional meeting place at the annual conference for APRNs/PAs and other clinicians with an interest in interprofessional pain management.
  • Advance and promote the education, research, and clinical role of APRNs/PAs functioning in interprofessional pain management.

Chairs

  • Theresa Mallick-Searle, MS, PMGT-BC, ANP-BC
  • Jeremy Adler, MS PAC
  • Amanda Zimmerman, PA-C

Behavioral Medicine/Pain Psychology

  • Give Pain Psychology a home at the Annual Meeting to express and accomplish goals.
  • Be the unified voice of the growing pain psychology contingency, and non-psychologist friends of said contingency.
  • Serve as a draw for new psychologist AAPM members.

Chair

  • Geralyn Datz, PhD, MP

Cancer Pain Medicine

  • Create consistent education and awareness of pain treatment options for oncology patients.
  • Optimization of various relationships with oncology societies with interest in pain management options and innovations for their society meetings. Increasing the AAPM footprint of influence around pain management in multi-specialty awareness.

Chairs

  • Nathan Neufeld, DO, CMQ, FACMQ, FABPMR
  • David Copenhaver, MD, MPH

Disparities in Pain Medicine (DPM):

  • Seek to equalize access to treatment for chronic pain in racial and ethnic minorities and people living in poverty
  • Create a forum for sharing knowledge and expanding awareness of existing disparities in pain care
  • Promote and participate in research efforts and programs to help improve access to pain treatment in the United States and globally
  • Create opportunities for mentorship and partnership to improve medical education in pain management.

Chairs

  • Natacha Telusca, MD MPH
  • James Khan, MD MSc
  • Sean Mackey, MD, PhD

Federal Medicine

  • Provide a meeting place for Annual Meeting attendees from the military or VA.

Chair

  • Friedhelm Sandbrink, MD

Headache & Orofacial Pain Medicine (HOP): 

  • Provide a meeting place for people who are interested in headache and orofacial pain.
  • Bring together pain practitioners from different specialties including anesthesia, neurology, primary care, psychology, and dentistry.
  • Promote interdisciplinary idea exchange and research collaboration and education.

Chair

  • Meredith Barad, MD

Innovation

  • Develop an ecosystem within pain medicine that fosters innovation, builds relationships, and helps lay the foundation for the future of pain medicine.
  • Provides encouragement and support for startups to push the boundaries in the pain field forward.
  • Host the annual AAPM + MIT Hacking Medicine Innovation Challenge
  • Develop an Innovation Venture Summit

Chairs

  • Salman Hirani, MD
  • Brian G. Mayrsohn M.D., M.S.

Integrative Medicine

  • Contribute experts discuss various integrative topics on the Pain Matters Podcast
  • Create quarterly expert speakers for the group to take a deep dive into various topics to understand how to better incorporate these ideas into their practices or better understand how to work with various experts to refer their patients.
  • Understand what an integrative physician can bring to the table for a pain patient and where to refer.
  • Understand the payment landscape for various integrative physicians, practices, and modalities.
  • Discuss small ways integrative physicians can begin to develop their own additional skills in integrative medicine to utilize within their own practice structures.

Chair

  • Rosanne Sheinberg, MD, ABoIM

Interventional Pain Medicine & Neuromodulation

  • Identify knowledge gaps in interventional pain medicine and provide a framework for projects to improve these gaps.
  • Support educational programming for various AAPM endeavors including the annual meeting, focusing on a comprehensive approach to identify indications and outcomes for interventions as part of a comprehensive and multidisciplinary pain medicine strategy.
  • Facilitate mentorship for younger practitioners through a program for faculty and career development and networking.
  • Develop a comprehensive evaluation of interventions, non-invasive and invasive techniques, used in the multitude of specialties represented in AAPM.

Chair

  • Amitabh Gulati, MD, FIPP, CIPS, ASRA-PMUC

Pain and Rehabilitation

  • Elevate clinical care, research, and advocacy for all rehabilitative professionals working with clients with chronic pain. 
  • Offers a shared space where clinicians from diverse backgrounds can come together to share best practices, novel techniques, and emerging research opportunities with the ultimate goal of enhancing patient care.   

Chairs 

  • Corinne Cooley, DPT, OCS
  • Allie Van Nuys, OTR/L, OTD, CLT
  • Heather Poupore-King, PhD

Substance Use Disorder

  • Improve clinical care for those with comorbid pain and substance use disorder.

Chair

  • Jay Kuchera, MD, FASAM

Vice Chair

  • David Giampetro, MD

AAPM MISSION

ADVOCATE.
EDUCATE.
COLLABORATE.