Acute and Postoperative Pain

The University of Michigan Acute Pain Service rounds on six thousand inpatients per year. These patients are postoperative as well as hospitalized patients with chronic pain issues. Postoperative epidural management is provided to approximately twelve hundred patients per year. We also manage postoperative pain utilizing regional anesthesia by placing indwelling catheters at the brachial plexus and isolated peripheral nerve blocks. Each fellow spends approximately 6 weeks on the acute pain service. There are also three anesthesiology residents and an anesthesiology faculty on this team. In addition there is a dedicated APS nursing team that provides 24 hr/day in-hospital support. During this rotation, the pain fellow rounds with the cancer service twice weekly and evaluates in-house consults for cancer and complex pain patients.