UC Irvine Health Provides the Only Pediatric Pain Doctor in Southern California Treating Chronic Pain in Children

ORANGE, Calif., April 16, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Shalini Shah MD, director of pediatric pain management in the UC Irvine Health Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Care, is the only specialist in Southern California fellowship-trained to treat children suffering from chronic pain.

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Shah provides much needed relief to children facing cancer in need of interventional pain treatment and palliative care at the integrative clinic based in the UC Irvine Health Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer, where she also treats adults. This highly-specialized method of treating chronic pain in children began at Harvard University and Boston Children's Hospital where Shah completed a fellowship under Dr. Charles Berde, renowned as the father of pediatric pain management. Today, Shah brings this expertise to patients in Orange County and the surrounding community in Southern California. Dr. Shah is certified by the American Board of Anesthesiology in both anesthesiology and pain medicine.

"Every day, I care for children who come to me in debilitating pain and together we develop a treatment plan to alleviate that pain," said Shah, an assistant clinical professor of anesthesiology and pain medicine with UC Irvine Health. "It's rewarding to see these children brighten up and begin to laugh, play and just be a kid again. In many cases, parents have been to specialist after specialist and they are grateful for the outcomes that we achieve for their children."

As part of her work on pain in children and adolescents at the UC Irvine Health Center for Pain Management, Shah offers a scientific and holistic approach to pain care. This approach includes treatments for lower back pain, headaches, and joint pain to more complicated treatments such as spinal cord stimulation, intrathecal pain pump technology, cooled radiofrequency technology and botox. The pain center offers state-of-the-art technologies to treat low back pain, including, Cooled Radio Frequency Neuromodulation. UC Irvine is one of the first locations in Orange County to offer this innovative technology. Shah and her colleagues at the pain center focus on healing chronic pain at its source and is a firm believer in acupuncture, Reiki, and other integrative treatments.

In addition to her contributions to UC Irvine, Shah has authored numerous textbook chapters, and is a book reviewer for the Oxford Textbook of Pediatric Pain. She's a primary investigator for a clinical trial in pediatric pain management. With a particular interest in alleviating chronic pain conditions via a multi-disciplinary and interventional approach, Shah's aim is to reduce pain so children can reclaim their lives and return to the activities they enjoyed before the onset of pain.

About UC Irvine Health Department of Anesthesiology & Perioperative Care

The Department of Anesthesiology & Perioperative Care is one of the premier anesthesiology departments in the United States, which boasts an excellent residency program for training future doctors. The department is affiliated with the UC Irvine School of Medicine and provides anesthesia coverage at the UC Irvine Medical Center. For more information about the UC Irvine Health Department of Anesthesiology & Perioperative Care, please visit: http://www.anesthesiology.uci.edu/.

Media Contact
Name: Maura Hofstadter, PhD
Phone Number: 714-456-7410

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SOURCE UC Irvine Health Department of Anesthesiology & Perioperative Care