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 September 2022 is Halena M. Gazelka, M.D.
Dr. Gazelka is an AAPM Director-at-large, a member of the Ethics Council, and serves as the Opioid Advisory Committee Chair.
She is an Associate Professor of Anesthesiology and the Medical Director of Public Affairs at the Mayo Clinic, where she practices Pain Medicine and Palliative Medicine in the Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine department. In this role, she conducts research on the treatment of chronic pain, acute pain management, and the use of opioids.
Her work on opioid-related research is focused on combating the opioid epidemic and covers the biomedical ethics of opioid prescription, prescription guidelines, and treating postoperative pain with fewer opioids. She has been an active member of the Minnesota Opioid Epidemic Response Advisory Council since 2019.
Dr. Gazelka obtained her medical degree at the University of Minnesota Medical School before pursuing her residency in anesthesiology at the Mayo School of Graduate Medical Education, where she also completed fellowships in Pain Medicine and Palliative Medicine.
“Helana was the ideal co-chair for the AAPM annual meeting during the height of the COVID pandemic when we had to quickly pivot from an in-person meeting to a virtual meeting on short-notice. She demonstrated an impeccable work ethic, flexibility, and team spirit, always going above and beyond in coordinating all of the educational offerings for the meeting.”
– Gagan Mahajan, MD | Professor, Medical Director, Division of Pain Medicine
Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine
University of California, Davis
Dr. Gazelka also serves as the Mayo Clinic Opioid Stewardship Program Chair and the interim Chief Communications Officer of the Mayo Clinic Executive Operations Team.
She plays an active role in spreading opioid awareness on the national stage and was invited to testify before the U.S. Senate during the HELP Committee hearings on the opioid crisis in 2019. In the same year, Dr. Gazelka was a producer on the PBS documentary series The Opioid Fix. For her work on the docuseries, she received an Emmy from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
To view Dr. Gazelka’s full CV, visit her bio on the Mayo Clinic 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.