What is a physiatrist?
Chances are, you’ve never heard of the medical specialty called Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation (PMR). The American Academy of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation defines PMR physicians as “nerve, muscle, bone and brain experts who treat injury or illness non-surgically to decrease pain and restore function”.
A physiatrist, or physical medicine and rehabilitation
doctor, specializes in the nonsurgical management of back and neck pain.
While many doctors provide drugs to mask symptoms of pain, these drugs
leave a patient debilitated and dependent upon them for pain relief.
A physiatrist, on the other hand, provides techniques and treatments
that enable back and neck pain sufferers to return to activity without
surgery.
With so many subspecialties in medicine, it is no
wonder that many people do not know exactly what a physiatrist does,
even if they have heard the term. It has become a nationwide trend for
highly respected spine centers to use physiatrists to treat cases of
back and neck pain.
A physical medicine and rehabilitation (PMR) doctor may
use a variety of tests to diagnose your back or neck pain. Physiatrists
may also use spinal injections for pain relief and for diagnostic purposes.
History of Physical Medicine
The specialized field of physical medicine was born at the Mayo Clinic in 1936 and came to prominence in 1941, when thousands of injured veterans came home from World War II, to a medical field poorly equipped to deal with them. There was a need for a non-surgical specialist with general medical training combined with specialty training in orthopedics and neurology; PMR has since filled that role.
PMR at PacificaSpine in Ventura and Thousand Oaks
Dr. Mark Simonson is the medical director at PacificaSpine and a PMR physician. His specialty training at the Mayo Clinic illustrates the integrated, specialized training of the PMR physician. His training includes neurology, orthopedics, sports medicine, spine and pain medicine, rheumatology, oncology, amputation rehab, spinal cord and brain injury, stroke, chronic pain / psychiatry, and extensive training in the highly specialized area of electrodiagnostics (use of sophisticated testing for evaluation of nerve and muscle function).
PMR physicians are interdisciplinary-minded; they are trained to manage professional treatment teams including physical therapy, occupational therapy, vocational rehab, social work, neuro-psychology, and more.
Some PMR physicians specialize in stroke or spinal cord injury. Dr. Simonson is a neuro-musculoskeletal (neurology / orthopedic) specialist. He is also sub-specialty trained and an expert in the new field of pain medicine; Dr. Simonson was one of the first ACGME board-certified pain medicine physicians in the United States.
This specialized, interdisciplinary training and expertise positions the PMR physician as leader in non-surgical evaluation and treatment of neck and back pain, as well as other neuro-musculoskeletal disorders. There is a currently a shortage of PMR physicians in the U.S., at the same time they are in increasing demand by both patients and payers, as the most expert, effective, and economical providers of non-surgical spine care.
So what does that mean for me?
Essentially, a physiatrist has unique skills to offer
a back or neck pain sufferer. Instead of masking pain with drugs, a
physiatrist identifies the cause of the pain. They often help patients
relieve pain symptoms without surgery.
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