Division of Regional Anesthesia
& Acute Pain

About the Division

The Division of Regional Anesthesia at the University of California San Diego is at the forefront of clinical service, research, and innovation for pain management. We strive to provide world-class clinical care for our patients and offer only the most up-to-date and effective approaches to treating pain associated with surgery and different types of injury. Our team has expertise in acute pain management for patients undergoing breast surgeries, joint replacements, extremity surgery, orthopedic trauma, colorectal surgery, surgical oncology, gynecological surgery, burn injuries, to name a few. In addition, we provide pain management outside of the hospital by providing ambulatory nerve blocks with continuous infusions. This allows many of our patients to have excellent pain control at home for the first few days after surgery when pain can be at its peak.

We are hiring!

We are actively recruiting for both interested Regional Anesthesia and Acute Pain Medicine fellows and faculty! If you are interested in joining our fellowship class for either the current year (2025-2026) or next year (2026-2027), please let us know (email below). Attending anesthesiologists with fellowship training in regional anesthesia and acute pain are also welcomed to apply for a position in our Division. We are especially looking for those interested in an academic career, which includes a passion in education, research, and expanding clinical initiatives. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Our Annual RAAPM Conference

Stay tuned for our upcoming 15^th Annual RAAPM conference scheduled for January 2026. We gather our experts in regional anesthesia and acute pain to provide a 2-day conference on RAAPM. The conference consists of engaging high-yield lectures, hands-on ultrasound workshops, and hands-on cadaver workshops where attendees can practice various nerve blocks alongside our experts.

Please visit https://anesthesia.ucsd.edu/divisions/acute-pain/syllabus.html for more information about our conference from February 2025.

Our Clinical Initiatives

We provide extensive regional anesthesia and acute pain services to diverse patient populations across UCSD sites. At our Jacobs Medical Center, we provide care for patients undergoing inpatient complex orthopedic, head & neck, breast, oncological, vascular, abdominal, and plastics surgeries. We have two ambulatory surgery centers, Koman Outpatient Pavilion and McGrath Outpatient Pavilion, where 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. At Hillcrest Medical Center, 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. At our East Campus hospital, we provide regional anesthesia services within this community-based hospital. We take pride in our strong collaboration with our surgical and nursing colleagues to deliver a team-based approach to regional anesthesia and acute pain. We have a high volume of a diversity of nerve blocks, including paravertebral blocks, a variety of fascial plane blocks, and several blocks for the joints, brachial plexus, lower extremity, and cervical plexus. We provide a large number of continuous perineural infusions for both our inpatients and outpatients. We also provide ultrasound-cryoneurolysis at both an inpatient (amputees and rib fractures) and outpatient setting (patients with chronic post-surgical pain.)

Our Research Initiatives

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.

Regional Anesthesia & Acute Pain Fellowship

We are actively recruiting for our current class (2025-2026) as well as next year’s class (2026-2027). Please contact us if interested in either position. At UC San Diego, postgraduate fellows will be immersed in a comprehensive curriculum incorporating advanced regional anesthesia and acute pain techniques, such as:

• continuous perineural infusion and ultrasound-guidance

• multimodal acute pain management strategies (inpatient medication management through our Acute Pain Service

• thoracic epidurals and intrathecal morphine

• clinical and translational research (fellows will have the opportunity to take part in all of our research initiatives or are encouraged to design their own studies)

• POCUS

• inpatient and outpatient ultrasound-guided cryoneurolysis for acute and chronic surgical and traumatic pain 

Please visit  https://anesthesia.ucsd.edu/divisions/regional-anesthesia/fellowship/index.html for more information