Pain Medicine Fellowship

Overview

Massachusetts General Hospital’s Pain Medicine Fellowship is a 12-month Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) accredited training program sponsored by the Mass General Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine. The program strives to provide a challenging and fulfilling training experience that encourages critical thinking and prepares our fellows for the independent practice of pain medicine.

The emphasis of the fellowship is excellence in patient care. We provide a multidisciplinary training environment in which fellows care for patients in a wide variety of clinical settings. Training occurs in conjunction with several departments at Mass General, including:

• Anesthesia
• Interventional radiology
• Palliative care
• Psychiatry/addiction

Fellows also rotate at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital (physiatry) and Boston Children’s Hospital (pediatric pain). Our center’s core attending staff is trained in a broad range of primary specialties, including:

• Anesthesiology
• Internal medicine
• Neurology
• Palliative care
• Psychiatry
• Psychology
• Physiatry

Requirements

The ACGME-accredited Pain Medicine Fellowship at Mass General is a 12-month program begun after successful completion of an ACGME-accredited residency program. 

The DACCPM at Mass General follows all minimum selection criteria as delineated in the Institutional Policy on Selection (PDF). As a prerequisite for entry, all applicants for the fellowship must be a graduate of one of the following:

• American Osteopathic Association Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation (AOACOCA)
• Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) accredited medical school
• USMLE completion requirement for clinical trainees

Medical Schools outside of the U.S. or Canada must hold:

• A currently valid Education Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG) certificate
• A full and unrestricted license to practice medicine in the U.S.

Applicants must have also completed a residency program accredited by one of the following:

• Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)
• Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (RCPSC)

Visa Information

All residents, clinical fellows, research fellows and staff who are not United States citizens and do not have a green card must have the appropriate visa in order to receive a Mass General appointment.

For questions regarding a J-1 visa, please call the Mass General Registrar/Credentialing Office 617-963-4646. Questions on all other types of visas should be directed to the Mass General Brigham International Office at 617-726-9211.

Curriculum

The Pain Medicine Fellowship is a unique training program affording fellows a close-knit and supportive learning environment with access to the activities and staff of the Mass General Pain Management Center, Harvard Medical School and affiliated departments and programs. Fellows are afforded broad exposure to clinical strategies for evaluating and treating individuals with pain and encouraged to participate in academic projects.

Our well-developed curriculum includes conferences that focus on chronic pain, cancer pain and interventional pain management. Additionally, fellows have teaching responsibilities as they give lectures to residents and medical students rotating through the Pain Management Center.

Didactic Curriculum

The fellowship offers a rich didactic program based on the ACGME requirements for training in pain medicine. Fellows benefit from a robust, multidisciplinary didactic schedule that includes:

• Airway management and intubation (for non-anesthesia trained fellows)
• Anesthesia Grand Rounds
• Cancer and palliative care series lectures
• Interprofessional chronic pain rounds
• Critical event management training at Harvard Center for Medical Simulation
• Fellowship orientation lectures
• Interventional conference series
• Journal club
• Neurology series lectures
• Physical medicine and rehabilitation series lectures
• Ultrasound curriculum

The fellowship is structured through the following core rotations that are held at Mass General unless noted otherwise:

• Chronic inpatient pain service (two months total taken in one-week blocks)
• Outpatient pain clinic (about five months total)
• Palliative care (two weeks)
• Pediatric pain service (inpatient and outpatient) at Boston Children's Hospital (two weeks)
• Physical medicine and rehabilitation at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, including a sports medicine experience (two weeks)
• Psychiatry/psychology with an addiction medicine component (two weeks)
• Elective (three weeks)

Embedded within the core rotations are the following key clinical experiences:

• Neurology
• Operating room interventional training

How to Apply

Selection to the fellowship is highly competitive. Only completed applications are reviewed.

The Pain Medicine Fellowship participates in the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS) and does not accept paper applications.

Email us

Application Documents

Please submit the following documents electronically via ERAS:

• A copy of your medical school transcript
• A copy of your USMLE scores
• A current curriculum vitae
• A photograph
• Personal statement describing your interest in the Pain Medicine Fellowship and your plans after completion of the fellowship
• Three (3) letters of recommendation. One letter must be from your residency program director or chief of service

The deadline for completed applications is April 30. Interviews will be conducted around May to September.

ERAS Timeline

For the academic year 2026-2027, ERAS opens up for applicants to apply to the Mass General Pain Medicine Fellowship on November 13, 2024. ERAS closes for applications on May 31, 2025, and the program deadline for completed applications is March 31, 2025.

National Residency Match Program (NRMP)

The Mass General Pain Medicine Fellowship participates in the NRMP Match, which opens in June. Match Day toward the end of September.