Pain Medicine

Pain medicine is the medical specialty devoted to understanding and treating pain, especially pain that lasts for months or years. As a physician in this field, you evaluate patients with conditions like chronic back pain, nerve injuries, headaches, and pain that follows surgery or illness, and you design a treatment plan that may combine medication, injections, nerve procedures, rehabilitation, and psychological support. The goal is usually better function and quality of life rather than a single cure, and you work with a broad team of other clinicians.