Neel Mehta, MD, Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology, and Director of the Division of Pain Medicine, was a featured commenter in the New York Times regular Science Q&A column (appearing in the paper's September 30, 2014 print edition). Times writer C. Claiborne Ray asked Dr. Mehta about the process through which pain medicine physicians determine the dosage of the medications they prescribe to alleviate pain in various conditions. The determination is a complex one, with doctors relying on a combination of experience, observation, and listening to their patients describe both their symptoms and a medication's effects. "The goal is always to find the lowest possible dose to treat pain aggressively while limiting interactions with other drugs and reducing the possibility of harmful side effects," Dr. Mehta told the Times.
Read the entire New York Times article here. Visit the Division of Pain Medicine here.