Anesthesia vs. PM&R for pain management / spine

[Spongeman7]

Hey guys! So I'm interested in pain management and was just wondering what the real differences of going into something like spine from PM&R or interventional pain from anesthesia was. I would ideally like to go into pain management through an anesthesia residency, but anesthesia seems to be getting more and more competitive, could you do something similar going through PM&R? I've also seen the compensation for pain management and anesthesia, and it seems much higher than PM&R but can't they both do similar procedures and have similar practices. In theory could a PM&R procedural doc make equivalent to an anesthesia pain doc? Thanks for the help in advance.

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[JBM16BYU]

I suggest moving this question to the Pain forum. It’s a very active forum and I’m sure you’ll get a bunch of responses.

One thing I’ll throw in there, as a PM&R physician, is whichever pathway you choose make sure you like the primary specialty as well just in case you decide not to pursue a pain fellowship in the future or in the unfortunate case you do not match into a pain fellowship. You may find while in anesthesiology or PM&R residency that another area of the field entices you more (my story) or you may stay pain-focused the entire time. Just make sure you enjoy your primary specialty too since you’ll be doing a 4-year residency in either.

 

[Spongeman7]

I suggest moving this question to the Pain forum. It’s a very active forum and I’m sure you’ll get a bunch of responses.

One thing I’ll throw in there, as a PM&R physician, is whichever pathway you choose make sure you like the primary specialty as well just in case you decide not to pursue a pain fellowship in the future or in the unfortunate case you do not match into a pain fellowship. You may find while in anesthesiology or PM&R residency that another area of the field entices you more (my story) or you may stay pain-focused the entire time. Just make sure you enjoy your primary specialty too since you’ll be doing a 4-year residency in either.

Yea will def choose the primary specialty I like too, will know more once rotations and things start too. I'll ask in the pain forum too, thanks for the reply!

 

[Angus Avagadro]

Anesthesia is more procedure oriented with lots of US guided procedures. Also heavy in pharm and neuro phys. Agree with the above, that you better like the specialty before you pick the sub specially