The American Academy of Pain Medicine (AAPM) is pleased to announce Robert W. Hurley, MD PhD FASA as Editor-in-Chief (EIC) of the Academy’s Journal Pain Medicine. Dr. Hurley transitioned into the role of EIC January 1, 2021 following the unanimous vote by the AAPM’s Executive Committee,. He succeeds the journal’s founding EIC, Dr. Rollin “Mac” Gallagher, a psychiatrist/family physician and the former National Director of Pain Management for the Department of Veterans Health Administration. Dr. Hurley previously served as the Senior Managing Editor of the journal and currently serves as a Director-at-Large of the Academy’s Board of Directors, and a member of the Research Committee.

AAPM

Dr. Hurley brings a vision for Pain Medicine to become the premier journal for multidisciplinary pain, spine and neuromodulation science and care in his role as the EIC. His first steps include building upon Dr. Gallagher’s work and recruiting additional female leaders in pain medicine to the journal editorial board to better reflect the scientific and demographic diversity of the field. Dr. Hurley will expand the research scope of the journal to including new models of health care delivery such as value-based care for pain, spine medicine, and care populations/providers that are traditionally underrepresented in the publication.

Dr Hurley is a board-certified diplomate in Pain Medicine and Anesthesiology with the American Board of Anesthesiology. He is the Executive Director of the Pain Service Line at the Wake Forest Baptist Health, where he serves as the Associate Dean of Faculty Development, Professor of Anesthesiology, and Professor of Neurobiology and Anatomy in the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. He has an active clinical practice specializing in spine pain and served as Program Director of Wake Forest’s Pain Medicine Fellowship and currently serves as the Addiction Medicine Fellowship Director. His preclinical PhD research focused on neurobiology, neurophysiology and pharmacology of pain, and his current research is focused clinical translational aspects of pain care.

Dr. Hurley has a notable career as an academic with leadership in clinical care, research, education, and administrative domains across the field of pain and spine medicine. His publications include over 110 papers and book chapters (including the Acute Pain chapter in Miller, “Baby” Miller and Bonica, and the chronic pain chapter of Barash).

Dr. Hurley received his bachelor’s degree in Psychology from McGill University in 1992, earned his PhD in Neurobiology in 2000 at University of Chicago with Donna Hammond and his MD in 2002 at the University of Chicago. He completed his Anesthesiology residency at Johns Hopkins in 2006 and was awarded the Merel Harmel MD award for excellence in the practice of clinical anesthesiology during residency. He stayed at JHU and completed his Pain Medicine fellowship. He became an Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins in 2007 and shortly thereafter was named the Medical Director of the Blaustein Pain Treatment Center. He was then recruited to University of Florida as an Associate Professor where he founded the Pain Medicine Division of the Department of Anesthesiology, developed the UF Pain & Spine Center, and began and led the Multidisciplinary Pain Medicine fellowship. In 2014, he was recruited to the Medical College of Wisconsin as a Professor and Vice-Chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology. At MCW, he directed the Division of Pain Medicine consisting of five clinical sections – the outpatient pain at MCW, inpatient pain (including Regional Anesthesiology and Acute Pain Medicine), the outpatient Integrated Mental Health at MCW, outpatient pain at the Veteran’s Hospital and the outpatient pediatric pain program at the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin. His research program is funded by the NIH, AHRQ and foundation sources and industry sources. It focuses on clinical trials, biomedical informatics, public health and impact of public policy on the field and practice of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine. His research program has resulted in over 120 peer reviewed articles, editorials, book chapters and books. He has a strong belief and directs his programmatic mission to team science and the development of the future clinicians-scientists in the fields of Multidisciplinary Pain Medicine, Spine Medicine and Addiction Medicine.


For more information please visit: Robert W. Hurley, MD, PhD | Professor, Anesthesiology


The American Academy of Pain Medicine is the premiere medical association for pain physicians and their treatment teams with over 6,000 members. Now in its 38th year of service, the Academy’s mission is to optimize the health of patients in pain and eliminate it as a major public health problem by advancing the practice and the specialty of pain medicine through education, training, advocacy and research. Pain Medicine is a multi-disciplinary journal dedicated to physicians, clinicians, educators and researchers with an interest in pain from all medical, rehabilitative and psychological specialties such as pain medicine, family practice, internal medicine, neurology, anesthesiology, physical medicine and rehabilitation, neurological spine surgery, orthopedic spine surgery, integrative health and psychiatry Information is available on the practice of pain medicine at www.painmed.org.