The current state of training in pain medicine fellowships: An Association of Pain Program Directors (APPD) survey of program directors.

Introduction: The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) approved the first pain medicine fellowship programs over three decades ago, designed around a pharmacological philosophy. Following that, there has been a rise in the transition of pain medicine education toward a multidisciplinary interventional model based on a tremendous surge of contemporaneous literature in these areas. This trend has created variability in clinical experience and education amongst accredited pain medicine programs with minimal literature evaluating the differences and commonalities in education and experience of different pain medicine fellowships through Program Director (PD) experiences.

Spinal Cord Stimulation for Neurogenic Claudication Associated with Lumbar Spinal Stenosis.

Background: There is a debate on the long-term outcomes of surgical decompression for lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS) as compared to conservative treatment, with even more limited outcomes in repeat surgeries. Hence, other less invasive treatment modalities, such as neuromodulation with a modern spinal cord stimulator (SCS), could be considered in the spectrum of management options for symptoms of neurogenic claudication (NC) related to LSS as an alternative to surgery.

Objective: Assessing the outcomes and efficacy of SCS in neurogenic claudication in patients with or without a prior lumbar surgery.

Intraoperative MRI electrical noise and monitor ECG filters affect arrhythmia detection and identification.

Most electrical equipment in the modern operating room (OR) radiates electrical noise (EN) that can interfere with patient monitors. We have described the EN that an intraoperative magnetic resonance imaging (iMRI) system emits and have shown that this high-energy EN diminishes the quality of the ECG waveform during iMRI scans in our neurosurgical OR. We have also shown that the ECG signal filters in our iMRI-compatible patient monitor reduce this interference but, in the process, disturb the true morphology of the displayed waveform.