Pain management specialist Asokumar Buvanendran, MD, chairperson of the Rush Department of Anesthesiology, is the 2025 recipient of the American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine’s Distinguished Service Award.
The award recognizes Buvanendran’s outstanding contributions to pain medicine, especially his efforts to address the opioid crisis through improved pain management strategies.
As a top adviser to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other medical societies, Buvanendran is a national leader in developing guidelines and pain management protocols. His work has helped anesthesiologists and other physicians deploy pain management therapies that either avoid addictive opioids or greatly reduce their use.
A key focus of his research and leadership has been preventing chronic pain after surgery, which helps substantially reduce opioid use in patients, the organization noted. Research suggests that many people who develop opioid addiction initially receive opioids for pain management after surgery or injury.
Buvanendran and his Rush Pain Center colleagues have pioneered the use of innovative interventional pain management devices, which send electrical pulses to the spinal cord to block or mask signals to the brain.
Buvanendran served as president of ASRA Pain Medicine from 2017 to 2019 and is executive editor of the Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine, a scientific journal.
