About Us

The SPNY Fellowship Program

Latrice Akuamoah MD & Kiran Patel MD

at the 860 5th ave NYC office

Dr. Chapman, Matt Spiegel MD,  fellow, and Lionel, research student

reviewing research data

Latrice Akuamoah MD and Arnold, medical assistant

in the recovery area

Pain Management Fellowship

Welcome to the Northwell Department of Anesthesiology at the Hosftra Medical School’s Chronic Pain Medicine Fellowship page. Our pain management fellowship program earned its Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) accreditation for its initial class in July 2020. The one-year fellowship program is based out of Northwell Health Systems, which is a large tertiary care hospital network in NYC, and The Spine and Pain Institute of New York (SPNY). Our program offers four (4) ACGME accredited fellowship positions per year in Interventional Pain Medicine. Our program offers a wonderful training opportunity with leading experts in the field of pain medicine with a strong emphasis on interventional procedures, didactics, and education.

Training future pain physicians requires strong didactic educational programming and the opportunity to apply this knowledge. Our structured educational platform will form the basis for you to become an expert in this sub-specialty. As fellows, you will be immersed in every aspect of patient care and will be trained to elicit a thorough pain history, perform a focused physical exam, and formulate treatment plans. This fellowship will provide the hands-on exposure necessary to develop expertise in interventional pain procedures and neuromodulatory techniques. Additionally, you will have ample experience in advanced procedures such as kyphoplasty, ablations, ultrasound guided injections, intrathecal pumps, as well as exposure to implantable spacer devices, decompressive procedures (MILD), endoscopic procedures and more. Our goal is not only to prepare you to become among the best graduating fellows technically, but to train you to become a future leader in the field of pain management.

To achieve this goal, an environment which facilitates academic pursuit is vital. SPNY has a dedicated research team which encompass multiple aspects of clinical research involved primarily with neuromodulation, including prospective and retrospective outcome studies, work involving biomarkers, functional imaging, and testing to identify neural pathways. Understanding of how to read and analyze research as well as form your own research project will be established. Fellows are required to participate in a research project and will have the opportunity to contribute once acclimated. Our training program embraces the educational goals of the ACGME in the areas of patient care, medical knowledge, practice-based learning and improvement, interpersonal and communication skills, professionalism and system-based practice learning. Rotating through Northwell Health Systems offers the perfect setting for this quest. The tradition of excellence at these institutions is carried through its faculty and employees and the stated mission of the hospital: To Heal. To Teach. To Discover. Our program offers fellows a great opportunity to train in a strong interventional pain medicine division while acquiring crucial skills in the related disciplines of neurology, physical medicine and rehabilitation, psychiatry/psychology and anesthesiology. The SPNY/Northwell team is fortunate to have a large complement of outstanding faculty members with prolific clinical, research and educational experience who have teamed up to form the multidisciplinary Pain Management Fellowship Program. You can view the faculty here.

In summary, we welcome your interest in the Division of Pain Medicine at Northwell Health Systems for your fellowship training and we encourage you to apply to what we believe to be a well-rounded training program in Pain Medicine that will prepare you for whatever endeavors may lie in your future. With the hybrid academic/private practice structure of the fellowship, we believe you will be optimally positioned to obtain post-fellowship careers anywhere from an academic position to a busy private practice office.

A Word From Our Program Director

Dr. Kiran serves both as the Program Director for our Multidisciplinary Pain Medicine Fellowship and as the Director of Neurosurgical Pain Management at Lenox Hill Hospital.  She completed her anesthesiology residency as well as her interventional pain management fellowship at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in NY, NY. She is board certified in both Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine.

“The Northwell/SPNY fellowship has been carefully developed into a premiere training program focused on multidisciplinary pain management and providing the highest quality education.  My goal is for graduating fellows to be confident in their clinical and technical skills readying them to enter into either an academic setting or private practice. Our aim is to set a strong foundation for life-long scholarship and both personal and professional advancement with the ultimate goal of developing the next generation of leaders in the field.”

Dr. Kiran Patel is on the board of directors of the North American Neuromodulation Society (NANS) and is considered a leader in the field of neuromodulation. She presents and teaches courses regularly nationally and internationally on Neuromodulation with a special interest in dorsal root ganglion stimulation for low back and pelvic pain.

We welcome those to learn more about and hopefully apply to our program for the upcoming year.

Dr. Kiran Patel

SPNY Fellowship Program Director