Fellowship in Regional Anesthesia & Acute Pain Management (RAAPM)

At UC San Diego, postgraduate fellows will be immersed in a comprehensive curriculum incorporating advanced regional anesthesia techniques, such as continuous perineural infusion and ultrasound-guidance; multimodal acute pain management strategies; clinical and translational research.

The UC San Diego RAAPM Fellowship emphasizes expert training in state-of-the-art regional anesthesia techniques and multi-modal strategies for acute pain management. We constantly strive to keep our curriculum fresh and provide our fellows with the most comprehensive, up-to-date, and advanced training program available.

Fellowship Structure

The fellowship structure is:

Flexible, with time allocated to the inpatient and ambulatory center block rooms, Acute Pain Service, operating room, and nonclinical pursuits (i.e. research, education, quality improvement, global health)
Fellows will have 1-2 attending operating room days per week (either supervising or providing solo anesthesia coverage), which helps augment salary.
Fellows are expected to learn how to teach/supervise residents in regional anesthesia and acute pain
Attending call (main operating room or obstetrics) is not required but is available for those who would like to supplement their salary
Frequent didactics, journal clubs, and oral board prep sessions
Academic projects with goal for conference presentation and/or manuscript publication

Clinical Site Rotations:

Fellows will have a unique opportunity to provide regional anesthesia care for patients across diverse populations across our UCSD sites:

Jacob Medical Center - we provide care for patients undergoing inpatient complex orthopedic, head & neck, breast, oncological, vascular, abdominal, and plastics surgeries.
Koman Outpatient Pavilion - we provide regional anesthesia care in the outpatient setting for patients undergoing orthopedic (including total joint arthroplasty, sports medicine, hand/wrist, and foot/ankle), gynecological, head & neck, and breast surgery
McGrath Outpatient Pavilion – at this new outpatient surgery center (opened 2026), our team has the opportunity to lead the development of robust regional anesthesia services at the site.
Hillcrest Hospital - we provide regional anesthesia and acute pain services at this Level 1 Trauma Center. Here, our teams help diverse populations, many from underserved communities, and encounter patients with traumatic injuries (such as rib fractures), burns, as well as those undergoing major orthopedic, oncological, and vascular surgeries.
East Campus Hospital - we provide regional anesthesia services within this community-based hospital.

Furthermore, fellows will have the opportunity to lead Acute Pain Services (APS). Our APS teams consist of a faculty attending, fellow, resident, and mid-level provider to provide comprehensive perioperative pain management for high risk patients. We have established two APS teams across our two major hospitals, Jacobs Medical Center and Hillcrest Hospital. Our team performs all thoracic epidurals and intrathecal morphine injections for major surgeries, including surgical oncology, urology, colorectal surgery, thoracic surgery, and gynecological. Furthermore, the team manages all pain postoperatively for these surgical patients, but also for total joint arthroplasty, trauma, plastic surgery, and major spine surgery. This includes opioid and non-opioid analgesia management, including intravenous ketamine and lidocaine infusions. The fellows will learn first-hand the expertise required to comprehensively manage a diverse group of surgical patients in the hospital setting.

In addition to clinical training, our fellows have the opportunity to:

Participate in our productive clinical research program. Fellows' involvement in research can range from simply performing the research-related procedures to heading up their own projects and/or clinical trials.
Gain exposure to novel regional anesthesia modalities including cryoneurolysis and peripheral neuromodulation
Gain deeper understanding in regional anesthesia/acute pain literature, statistics, and designing studies.
Participate in improving resident and fellow education and curriculum design
Participate in international medical missions involving regional anesthesia. See our past philanthropy work.
Rotate in the preoperative care clinic and help improve enhanced recovery after surgery pathways
Improve education projects including simulation teaching

Clinical Experience

Master basic single-injection and continuous peripheral nerve block techniques
Employ ultrasound-guidance and electrical stimulation, as well as advanced ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia procedures and paravertebral blocks
Gain experience managing continuous perineural infusions for inpatients and outpatients, as well adjunct analgesic medications
Learn to apply regional anesthesia techniques in a variety of surgical settings including trauma/burn, elective outpatient and more invasive orthopedics, vascular surgery, abdominal and pelvic procedures, head and neck surgery, and plastic/reconstructive surgery for adult and pediatric patients

Research Possibilities

Our faculty are actively engaged in visionary research - from clinical trials, to retrospective studies, to biomedical informatics – targeted at improving pain management for both acute and chronic pain patients, as well as risk-stratification for opioid use disorder. Collectively, our faculty have combined research funding over $20 million, from various funding agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense, Wellcome Leap, Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation, and several industry-funded projects. Active clinical trials include measuring efficacy of ultrasound-guided cryoneurolysis (for rib fractures, phantom limb pain, mastectomy, painful diabetic neuropathy of the foot), peripheral neuromodulation (for orthopedic surgery), continuous perineural infusions (for total knee arthroplasty), and electromagnetic treatment (for orthopedic, breast and hernia surgery). We have an extensive program in biomedical informatics, in which we apply artificial intelligence approaches and advanced statistical techniques to develop predictive models that risk-stratify those high risk of persistent opioid use and opioid addiction. Furthermore, we actively perform several retrospective observational studies assessing the association of various regional anesthesia and acute pain protocols with surgical outcomes. Our fellows will have the opportunity to:

Participate in the design and execution of randomized prospective controlled trials in regional anesthesia and acute pain medicine
Research in novel therapies for acute pain medicine including ultrasound-guided percutaneous cryoanalgesia and peripheral neuromodulation (i.e. peripheral nerve stimulators for postoperative pain)
Execute retrospective projects using institutional and national data to identify trends and patterns in regional anesthesia and pain practice
Design and execute improve enhanced recovery pathways for surgical patients in the acute pain service
Research in data science, machine learning/artificial intelligence, and predictive modeling for perioperative pain/opioids using large datasets
Research in the efficacy of various multimodal approaches to acute pain management
See our division's list of publications in the recent years

Fellows

Past Fellows

2011–2023

2023

Catrissa Lightfoot
Andrew Qian
Sara Weintraub
Cortney Barbica

2022

Brian Park, MD
Christian Seger, MD
Christine Kuo, MD
Max Soghikian, MD
Kenny Miller, MD
Tracy Ro, MD

2021

Nicole Andonian, MD
Aanchal Prakash, MD
Sabair Lee, MD
Michelle Wang, MD

2020

Brian Curran, MD
Ross Drueding, MD
Brenton Alexander, MD
Jennifer Kim, MD
Lawrence Younan, MD

2019

Christina Doan, MD
Brant Wilson, MD
Melissa Millar, MD
Usha Saldanha, MD

2018

Mary Abanobi, MD
Jeffrey Walker, MD

2017

John J. Finneran, MD
Deepa Asokan, MD
Beamy Sharma, MD, MBA
Matthew Swisher, MD, MS
Kara Sievert, MD

2016

Laura Park, MD
Patrick Nguyen, MD
Rodney A. Gabriel, MD

2015

Nathalie Hernandez, MD
Nivek Amin, MD
Jennifer Jou, MD

2014

Jacklynn Sztain, MD
Rajesh Reddy, MD
Engy Said, MD

2013

Joel Feinstein, MD
Anthony Machi, MD
Bahareh Khatibi, MD

2012

Wendy Abramson MD
Amanda Monahan, MD

2011

Robert McGraw, MD
Brenna Hise, MD
Juliette Humsi, MD
Nisha Malhotra, MD

2006–2010

2010

Matt Charous, MD
Edward Kim, MD
Sarah Madison, MD
Amanda Peterson, MD

2009

Justin Heil, MD 2
Steven Suydam, MD

2008

Gloria Chang, MD
Lynna Choy, MD

2007

Steven Back, MD

2006

Vanessa Loland, MD

Eligibility & Positions

8–10 annually (August 1st start dates). Candidates must be able obtain a California medical license prior to starting fellowship.

Application Period

We are still accepting applicants for both the current 2025–2026 and the future 2026-2027 fellowship year. Please email us if interested.

For the 2027-2028 class, you will have to register with and apply to our program through the SF Match website below. SF Match will be the central site involved in processing applications, accepting rank lists, processing of the match itself, as well as providing post-match vacancy matching.

Apply Now

Contact

Ileana Ramirez
Anesthesiology Fellowship Coordinator
reganesthesia@ucsd.edu
Office: (858) 657-5272
Fax: (858) 249-1239

Engy T. Said, MD
Chief, Division of Acute Pain
Email: esaid@health.ucsd.edu

Note to prospective applicants about the UC COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate

UC San Diego and San Diego County Health policies mandate that all healthcare workers be up to date with their COVID-19 vaccinations or have an exemption for medical or religious reasons (subject to review and approval). In addition, UC San Diego's major affiliates have similar expectations.