Pain Medicine

Pain Medicine in the Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Care continues to provide care across all the UCSF Health campuses. On the inpatient side, three separate Acute Pain consult services and one Chronic Pain consult service provide care at Parnassus, Mount Zion, and Mission Bay sites. On the outpatient side, our flagship clinic, now renamed the Center for Pain Medicine, moved from 2255 Post Street on the Mount Zion campus to the beautiful new Bayfront Medical Building at 520 Illinois Street on the Mission Bay campus.

The move of our clinic to Bayfront has been a long time coming, due to years of advocacy by our department chair and other executive leadership and ongoing efforts to improve the clinic's financial standing. The new state-of-the-art facility is over 9,000 square feet, with four procedure rooms, three of which have C-arms, six pre- and post-procedure holding areas, eight clinic rooms, five flexible telehealth rooms, two psychology offices, and much more. Shortly after moving, our procedure volume increased approximately 15% and our operational revenue increased around 25%. The new space has also allowed us to create new, innovative programs, such as a psychologically informed physical program, in which patients with kinesiophobia (fear of movement) are seen in an integrated visit by both a pain psychologist and a physical therapist. We have also increased our ketamine and lidocaine infusion volume by approximately 50% since moving to Bayfront and anticipate further growth as we finalize an inter-departmental collaboration with psychiatry to provide ketamine infusions not just for pain but for treatment resistant depression.

With the move to Bayfront, we have also enjoyed a substantial increase in our non-provider staff, which has been key in supporting our ongoing growth. Additional providers include another pain psychologist, two pain pharmacists, a nurse practitioner, and a physician faculty member who is also boarded in palliative care. Together, these faculty and staff help us to further grow inter-departmental collaborations and develop new programs.

It is an exciting time of growth for our specialty, and I look forward to even more to come in the coming years.

Chris R. Abrecht, MD
Chief, Pain Medicine
Medical Director, Center for Pain Medicine