Join our live stream of the main meeting sessions from the 51st Annual Regional Anesthesiology and Acute Pain Medicine Meeting April 16-18, 2026!

 Main meeting sessions schedule

This year’s theme, “Redefining the Role and Value of Regional Anesthesia,” invites us to confront the contradictions, complexities, and possibilities that define our field today. 

Our plenary session topics were selected to prompt discussion and challenge some currently held beliefs. We invite three guest surgeons (an orthopedic trauma surgeon, a sports surgeon, and a peripheral nerve surgeon) to bring us their insights. We bring international faculty from Europe and Asia to introduce us to a different perspective on acute pain management. We welcome Patrick Tighe, MD, MS, with his passion for AI innovation, quality and patient safety, and research as a special speaker.

We provide 6 Ask the Experts panels for you to interact with experts on challenging clinical topics. Our extremely popular parallel PBLD sessions will once again be offered, with over 40 topics to choose from in a more relaxed setting.

We craft our 51st Annual Regional Anesthesiology and Acute Pain Medicine Meeting with three goals in mind:

1. To explore the potential and define the limits of different regional anesthesia techniques
2. To provide the audience access to faculty who are at the forefront of the science, education, and leadership in our subspecialty, and
3. To focus on value-added care that emphasizes analgesic effectiveness.

Speakers:

Jason Buehler, MD; UTHSC College of Medicine Knoxville, TN

Che Solla MD; MBA, FASA; UTHSC College of Medicine Knoxville, TN

Moderator:

Raj Gupta, MD; Vanderbilt University Medical Center Nashville, TN

Join us for an insightful webinar featuring Drs. Nadia Hernandez and Jennifer Noerenberg, with special moderation by Dr. Melody Anderson, as they explore practical strategies for building and sustaining regional anesthesia services across diverse practice settings. This session will highlight scalable staffing and workflow models, key operational components for both hospital-based and private practice environments, and approaches to maintaining quality, safety, and education across large, multisite departments. Attendees will also gain insight into financial considerations, efficiency optimization, and strategies to strengthen service differentiation in competitive markets.

In this webinar, Dr. Leena Mathew (Division of Pain Medicine, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, NY) and Dr. Amy Pearson (Aurora Advocate Health, Milwaukee, WI) will explore the role of aromatherapy as an adjunctive modality in pain management. The session will review essential oil composition and labeling, including how breeding and cultivation influence chemical properties and therapeutic effects. Faculty will also discuss the neurobiological mechanisms of olfactory signaling in limbic pain processing and autonomic regulation, along with the evidence supporting aromatherapy for analgesia and anxiolysis. Practical guidance will be provided to help clinicians identify essential oils that can be safely incorporated into clinical practice.

In this webinar, Sarah Tierney and Yuqi Gu (University of Ottawa) will discuss the development and implementation of Acute Pain Service analgesic care pathways for rib fractures, lower limb amputation, and hip fracture patients. The session will review the evidence supporting peripheral nerve blocks in older adults with hip fracture and outline a pathway designed using principles of implementation science. Participants will gain practical insight into key resources, common and unexpected pitfalls, and real-world solutions for creating and sustaining APS analgesic pathways across diverse practice settings.

In this webinar, Dr. Eshraghi (Ochsner Health System), Dr. Bautista (University of Louisville), and Dr. Kohan (University of Virginia) will discuss perioperative management of patients with implanted neuromodulation devices, including peripheral nerve stimulation, intrathecal drug delivery systems, and spinal cord stimulators. The session will focus on key preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative considerations, with practical guidance on neuraxial anesthesia, device safety, and risk mitigation. Participants will gain insight into pre-procedural planning, technique modifications, multidisciplinary communication, and strategies to prevent complications such as electromagnetic interference, infection, device malfunction, and inadequate analgesia.

Learning Objectives:

1. Identify key regulatory, compliance, and documentation requirements relevant to running a pain medicine practice.
2. Analyze financial and operational challenges unique to pain medicine, including reimbursement models and cost-effectiveness of therapies.
3. Apply practice management strategies to optimize workflow, patient access, and interprofessional team coordination.
4. Incorporate quality improvement and outcome measurement tools to enhance clinical effectiveness and patient satisfaction.

Learning Objectives:

1. Describe validated outcome measures used in pain medicine, including pain intensity, functional status, and quality-of-life tools.
2. Differentiate between patient-reported outcomes, clinician-reported outcomes, and objective functional measures in the context of pain interventions.
3. Apply appropriate assessment tools to evaluate the effectiveness of pharmacological, interventional, and multidisciplinary pain therapies.
4. Interpret outcome data to guide clinical decision-making, treatment modification, and longitudinal care planning.

Learning Objectives:

1. Describe current clinical, ethical, and regulatory challenges affecting contemporary pain medicine practice.
2. Identify barriers to access for interventional, pharmacological, and multidisciplinary pain therapies.
3. Evaluate the role of health economics and reimbursement policies in shaping pain management strategies.
4. Formulate advocacy strategies to address disparities and advance the field of pain medicine.

Learning Objectives:

1. Evaluate the strength of the evidence base that informs payer coverage decisions for interventional and emerging pain treatments
2. Implement shared decision-making strategies that incorporate clinical evidence, patient values, and financial considerations
3. Apply troubleshooting techniques for suboptimal outcomes or complications related to neurostimulation therapy.
4. Address appropriate indications but challenging comorbidities—such as mental health conditions and high opioid use—when considering spinal cord stimulation
5. Collaborate with peers and faculty for high-risk or atypical cases to create practical solutions you can use on Monday morning