Stanford Pain Chief Honored with NIH Director's Award

STANFORD, CALIF. - Today, Sean Mackey, MD, PhD, chief of Stanford's Division of Pain Medicine and Redlich Professor of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine, Neurosciences and Neurology, was awarded the highly prestigious National Institutes of Health Director's Award in recognition of his leadership role on the National Pain Strategy. The NIH Director's Award recognizes superior performance and leadership that has promoted the advancement, understanding or application of scientific principles directly related to fulfilling the mission of the National Institutes of Health. This is the first time a specialist in pain medicine has won this distinguished award.

"I am tremendously honored to accept this award on behalf of the 80 experts who came together with the mission to improve the well-being of those living with pain," said Mackey, who also holds the Redlich Professorship. "This award represents a win for the millions of people who suffer or will suffer from acute, chronic or disease-related pain."

Mackey currently serves as co-chair of the Oversight Panel for the NIH/Health and Human Services National Pain Strategy, an effort to establish a national health strategy for pain care, education and research. The oversight panel was developed to respond to one of the key recommendations in the 2011 Institute of Medicine report, "Relieving Pain in America." Mackey was a member of the IOM Committee on Advancing Pain Research, Care and Education that prepared the final report describing the need for better data on pain and pain treatment.

"I want to congratulate Sean on this great honor and thank him for his leadership in shaping the National Pain Strategy," said Lloyd Minor, MD, dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine. "By enhancing pain prevention and research, the strategy points the way to alleviating the suffering of millions of Americans."

The National Pain Strategy presents a comprehensive plan to improve the assessment and care of people in pain. It aims to better educate health care providers about pain, change reimbursements to pay for what works, break down barriers to reduce disparities in care, collect data to determine what works and spur research to better understand the impact and underlying causes of pain—and how to stop it.

"Achieving the goals outlined in the National Pain Strategy will require us all to work together," added Mackey.

Under Mackey's leadership, researchers at the Stanford Pain Management Center and the Stanford Systems Neuroscience and Pain Laboratory have made major advances in the understanding of chronic pain as a disease in its own right, one that fundamentally alters the nervous system. Mackey has overseen efforts to map the specific brain and spinal cord regions that perceive and process pain, which has led to the development of a multidisciplinary treatment model that translates basic science research into innovative therapies to provide more effective, personalized treatments for patients with chronic pain.

The Stanford Pain Management Center, under Mackey's leadership has been designated a Center of Excellence by the American Pain Society, one of only two centers in the United States to receive this honor twice.

Mackey is the immediate past president of the American Academy of Pain Medicine. He is the author of over 200 journal articles, book chapters, abstracts and popular press pieces and lectures frequently at national and international medical conferences. Mackey earned his BSE and MSE in bioengineering from University of Pennsylvania. He received his MD and a PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Arizona.