November 2026 President's Message
Dear Colleagues and Friends,
It is hard to believe there are two months left in 2026. The Academy has had a busy and productive year. The 2027 Call for Nominations is open through November 4 at midnight Eastern Time. The membership will elect a Secretary, Director-at-Large, Doctoral-Level (Non-Physician) Director, and two Nominating Committee members.
Please visit our 2027 Call for Nominations page for more information on eligibility and volunteer position descriptions.
Thank you to Cyrus Ghaffari, MD, Jessica Oswald, MD, MPH, Niketa Parikh, DO, and Paul DeJulio, MD, for serving on the Nominating Committee. Nominations for the AAPM Awards are also open.
The Acute Low Back Pain Guideline and Systematic Review have been accepted for publication in Pain Medicine, and we launched the dissemination portion of the project on October 1, 2026.
Congratulations to Guideline Development Group Co-Chair Jessica Oswald, MD, MPH, and AAPM panel members James Babington, MD, Beth D. Darnall, PhD, Andrew Chang, MD, Mark Holtsman, PharmD, and Jackson, PhD, FMP-BC.
I would like to thank Drs. Steven Cohen, Mark S. Wallace, and Ajay Wasan for their tireless support and clinical perspective throughout the process. Be sure to register for the FREE 1.5-credit on-demand webinar.
Earlier this year, the Academy updated its bylaws following the Bylaws Committee's thorough review. Our amended bylaws are based on the work led by Dr. Mike Hooten, Dr. Farshad Ahadian, Dr. Kayode Williams, Dr. Charles Argoff, Dr. Antje Barreveld, Dr. Steven Stanos, Dr. Yuri Gorden, Dr. Spencer Brodsky, and Jeremy Adler, PA-C, DMSc, who also serves as the AAPM Foundation President.
The Membership Committee completed its review and recommendations to update our membership categories to better align with a pain medicine career path and a more inclusive, multidisciplinary community. The Academy remains physician-led and provides more leadership opportunities for the multidisciplinary team to lead and contribute to our success. Many thanks to Dr. Sayed Wahezi and Dr. Michael Hooten for their consecutive leadership.
I'd like to thank Dr. James Babington for leading the Pain Medicine Policy Committee. Under his leadership, the Academy has shifted from reactive to proactive advocacy for access to care for the patients we treat.
Dr. Antje Barreveld was instrumental in coordinating our response to the proposed Peripheral Nerve Block LCD, which took effect last week. The Pain Medicine community's collaboration and coordination of letter-writing and hearing attendance helped shape the LCD, and more work remains. Dr. Priyanka Singla helped coordinate and edit our response to the five MACs' proposed LCD, which was published in Pain Medicine.
We recently published our Medicare Peripheral Nerve Block LCDs Clinician Resources page to help our community navigate the LCDs. We also published a Patient Advocacy Toolkit.
Reversing the LCD will require an Act of Congress, so our patients must advocate for themselves by writing to their Congressional Representative and Senators.
We encourage every member to share this resource on their social media pages, with their colleagues, and with their patients.
Access the LCD Resources & Patient Advocacy ToolkitWe are very proud of the Academy's peer-reviewed journal, Pain Medicine. Congratulations to our Editor-in-Chief, Robert Hurley, MD, PhD, HALM, FASA, and Deputy Editor-in-Chief Zachary McCormick, MD, on increasing our journal's impact factor to 4.0 and improving our ranking to 12/72 in Anesthesiology.
Thank you to all our volunteers for all you do to fulfill the Academy's mission to advance and promote the full spectrum of multidisciplinary pain care, education, advocacy, and research to improve function and quality of life for people in pain.
Warm regards,
Marie Hanna, MD, MEHP
AAPM President