Information Box Group
Dedicated Teaching Facility
McMaster University boasts a large, diverse, and experienced clinical faculty in Pain Medicine from multiple backgrounds, including Anesthesia, Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Psychiatry, Neurology, and Surgery.
Clinical Experience
The two large academic chronic pain clinics, the Michael G. DeGroote Pain Clinic and St. Joseph’s Healthcare Pain Clinic, King Street Campus are two of the busiest academic pain clinics in the province, providing pain medicine residents with exposure to and experience with a wide variety of pain conditions and pain treatments.
Excellence in Interventional Procedures
The program offers residents numerous opportunities to participate in ultrasound and fluoroscopic guided procedure opportunities taught by faculty who are nationally-recognized speakers and lecturers at various conferences.
Specialty Workshops
Cadaver intervention sessions, MSK Ultrasound Workshops, access to Pain Learning Exchange (PLEX) virtual inter-institutional learning and collaboration sessions with hands-on learning.
Winter and Spring Simulation Sessions on how to manage Chronic Pain and Addiction are now a part of the curriculum.
Cannabis & Cannabinoid Research
Residents have the opportunity to work with leaders in the Cannabis and Cannabinoid research department.
Centre of Excellence (Chronic Pain Centre of Excellence for Canadian Veterans)
We are affiliated with the The Chronic Pain Centre of Excellence for Canadian Veterans (CPCoE) was established to conduct research and help improve the well-being of Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) Veterans, and their families, suffering from chronic pain.
Dr. Ramesh Zacharias, Chronic Pain Faculty at the Michael G. DeGroote Pain Clinic at McMaster, is the President, CEO and Medical Director of The Chronic Pain Centre of Excellence for Canadian Veterans.
The Chronic Pain Centre of Excellence for Canadian Veterans website:https://www.veteranschronicpain.ca/
Varied Elective Opportunities
McMaster has a well-regarded Contemporary Medical Acupuncture Program in which the resident can enroll and complete. We are able to offer a wide range of electives from research and biostatistics to neuromodulation, diagnostic imaging, public health and preventative medicine, and curriculum development, as well as work at the Institute for Pain Research and Care and the National Pain Centre (both associated with McMaster University).
Resident Clinic
Once the resident has completed at a minimum 4 blocks of multidisciplinary pain clinic (MDPC), and has been deemed by the residency program committee (RPC) to be competent based on a standardized evaluation process, he/she will be eligible to participate in the resident-run clinic (RRC). With the RRC, the resident takes a primary role in the operation of a pain clinic. She/he is responsible for the triage of new referrals, scheduling of patients, assessment of patients, formation of treatment plans, adjustments to the treatment plan, performance of the appropriate interventions, communication with the referring physician and/or primary care provider, provision of referral to another physician, and discharge of the patient from care. This is a longitudinal rotation. The resident is still under the supervision of a faculty member who is immediately available to the resident in case issues arise; the resident reviews all patient encounters with the supervisor at the end of the day.
The resident, as part of the RRC, will also have access to regularly scheduled procedural time, whereby she/he can perform an interventional pain procedure under image guidance. The supervising faculty member is present in the procedural suite but will not actively intervene unless he/she observes an issue with the resident’s performance, or the resident requests assistance.
As part of the educational process, the resident will be submitting billings for services provided through the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP). The billings generated will go into a special educational fund, out of which funding for educational endeavours can be drawn.