The American Academy of Pain Medicine

AAPM Members in the News

Paul Christo, M.D., M.B.A, was one of six experts to receive prestigious Mayday Pain & Society Fellowship

NEW YORK CITY (July 28, 2008) - The Mayday Fund today announced the selection of six experts in pain management to be fellows under The Mayday Pain & Society Fellowship. The new fellows hail from across the United States and Canada, specializing in a wide range of health care disciplines including anesthesiology, nursing, pharmacy pediatrics and pain policy. 

Established in 2003, the Fellowship provides leaders in the pain management field with tools and skills to advocate on behalf of better treatment for pain. Fellows learn how to better communicate to media and policymakers and raise visibility for their issues.  Thirty fellows will have completed the program by 2009.

"The caliber of candidates for this Fellowship continues to amaze us, and we wish we could have awarded a Fellowship to so many more," said Russell Portenoy, M.D., Chairman of the Mayday Fellowship Advisory Committee, and Chairman of the Department of Pain Medicine and Palliative Care at Beth Israel Medical Center. "The twenty-four fellows who have been through the program to date are true leaders in pain management," he said.  "They bring new energy and focus to pain issues that need so much attention.  We know the six new fellows will expand the effort."

The new six fellows for 2008-09 are:

Paul Christo, M.D., M.B.A., Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, and Director, Multidisciplinary Pain Fellowship and Pain Treatment Center, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Lisa Robin, Senior Vice President, Federation of State Medical Boards; Bonnie Stevens, M.S.N., Ph.D., Signy Hildur Eaton Chair in Paediatric Nursing Research, University of Toronto, Hospital for Sick Children; Scott Strassels, Pharm.D., Ph.D., B.C.P.S., Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice, University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Public Health, University of Texas School of Public Health, Austin Regional Campus; Anna Taddio, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto; William Zempsky, M.D.,  Associate Director, Pain Relief Program and Medical Director, Clinical Trials, Connecticut Children's Medical Center, University of Connecticut School of Medicine.

"The Mayday Fund Trustees are proud of the outstanding cadre of pain leaders who have participated in the Fellowship program to date, and are pleased to invite the new six to a group with such exciting potential," said Christina Spellman, Executive Director, The Mayday Fund. 

As part of their training, the new fellows will attend an intensive four-day workshop in Washington, D.C. in October 2008, and work closely with Burness Communications, a public relations firm that works solely with non-profit organizations, primarily in health and science.  Fellows will learn how to connect with local and national media, write opinion editorials, develop relationships with university public affairs and government relations leaders, and talk with state legislators and Members of Congress. By improving their communications skills, the candidates will be poised to move the field forward by educating and working with the media, policymakers, advocates, and health and business leaders.

The fellows will develop skills to advocate and communicate on many of the pain issues they deal with everyday including the under-treatment of pain, pediatric pain, chronic pain, palliative care, the treatment of pain with prescription pain medications, and disparities in pain treatment.

The Fellowship Advisory Committee selects the six winners each year. On the Advisory Committee for the Mayday Pain & Society Fellowship are Chair Russell K. Portenoy, M.D.; James Campbell, M.D., Professor of Neurosurgery and Vice Chairman of the Department at Johns Hopkins Hospital; Scott Fishman, M.D., Professor of Anesthesiology and Chief, Division of Pain Medicine at the University of California, Davis; Kathleen M. Foley, M.D., Attending Neurologist in the Pain and Palliative Care Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; Sandra H. Johnson, J.D., Professor of Law and Health Care Ethics Emeritus, St. Louis University; Patrick John McGrath, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Psychiatry and Pediatrics, Dalhousie University Medical School; Joan Teno, M.D., M.S., Professor of Community Health and Medicine, and Associate Director of the Center for Gerontology and Health Care Research at the Brown Medical School; and Lonnie Zeltzer, M.D., 2004 Mayday Fellow, Professor Pediatrics, Anesthesiology, Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Director of the Pediatric Pain Program at UCLA's Mattel Children's Hospital, and Associate Director of the Patients and Survivors Program at the UCLA Jonsson Cancer Center.