AAPM members are invited to nominate fellow members for our monthly AAPM Member Focus feature by filling out the form found here. Below is this month’s focus member.
The AAPM Member Focus nominee for October 2022 is Ajay D. Wasan, M.D., M.Sc.
Dr. Wasan is a former AAPM President (2020-2021), current Co-Chair of the Behavioral Medicine Committee and Awards Committee, and serves as Executive Co-Chair of the Counsel of Committees.
He is a Professor of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine and Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, where he serves as the Vice Chair for Pain Medicine in the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at UPMC. He is also Co-Director of the Center for Innovation in Pain Care (CIPC) at the University of Pittsburgh. In these roles, he oversees clinical care across 12 UPMC adult and pediatric pain clinics, a pain fellowship, and supervises research and technology development throughout the department’s Division of Pain Medicine.
Dr. Wasan obtained his medical degree from the University of Illinois before completing his residency at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Psychiatry. He went on to complete fellowships in Pain Medicine and Clinical & Translational Science at Harvard Medical School. He joined the University of Pittsburgh in 2013, after leaving Harvard as an Associate Professor of Anesthesiology and Psychiatry.
Dr. Wasan has a broad range of clinical and research expertise with a focus on the detailed phenotyping of patients and the delivery of multimodal pain care in interventional settings. This work includes many published studies of clinical trials, functional MRI studies of the brain, quantitative sensory testing, and the role psychiatric comorbidity plays in predicting prescription opioid misuse. He is currently the principal investigator of three NIH HEAL grants, including one for a pain clinical trials center to test new medications.
Reflecting on his career path and time with AAPM, Dr. Wasan says, “I have been fortunate enough to build a career in academic medicine where I am able to do a little bit of everything and have a significant impact as a leader. Every day I get to do new things and face new challenges, and I love that! Like most people, I needed strong mentorship to accomplish these goals, and leaders at AAPM (such as Mac Gallagher, another former AAPM President) took me under their wing and nurtured my career, which I am so incredibly grateful for.”
Most recently, Dr. Wasan has expanded into the field of medical informatics, where he has developed a large data repository of patient-reported outcomes coupled with electronic medical records to track and analyze treatment outcomes in UPMC Pain Clinics. The system is called PORT—Patient Outcomes Repository for Treatment—and utilizes the CHOIR software developed at Stanford by Dr. Sean Mackey (another previous AAPM President). By charting the patterns of recovery in patients, Dr. Wasan’s research is shedding light on the effectiveness of multimodal pain treatments delivered in real-world clinical settings.
To view Dr. Wasan’s full CV, visit his bio on the University of Pittsburgh’s website.
Nominate a fellow AAPM member who exemplifies our mission to advance multidisciplinary pain care innovation, education, advocacy, and research by completing the nomination form here.