NSPC - Key Persons
Dr. Munoz began her medical career in her native country of Argentina before moving to the United States, where she has worked in numerous hospitals and pain practices. In addition to serving as the director of the lnterventional Pain Center at Rhode Island Hospital, she has also held the position of assistant professor in the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Vermont and clinical assistant professor of surgery (anesthesiology) at the Brown University Alpert Medical School.
"I am very excited about new treatments that are becoming available for the treatment of chronic pain, including stem cell therapy and platelet rich plasma therapy," she said. "These interventions and others allow us to target the cause of pain as specifically as possible so that we can achieve better outcomes."
Dr. Munoz earned her medical degree from Universidad Nacional de Cordoba in Cordoba, Argentina and performed her residency in anesthesiology at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, SC. She then completed a fellowship in pain medicine at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, IA.
"Patients who are suffering with pain need to be treated with dignity, courtesy and respect," Dr. Munoz said. "They should feel free to express their frustrations, their fears and their hopes with me. My goal is to provide the same care for each patient that I would desire for my own family."
Dr. Munoz is fluent in Spanish and has served as a volunteer anesthesiologist for an Esperanca Medical Mission to Bolivia. In her free time, she enjoys traveling, cooking, writing and going to barbeques.
Dr. Shanbhag joined National Spine & Pain Centers in 2012 after several years in private practice in South Carolina.
Job Titles:
- Education / Medical School / Ross University School of Medicine
Dr. Newton joined StemCell Arts, an affiliate of National Spine & Pain Centers, in 2016. As a board-certified, fellowship-trained sports medicine physician, his professional passion includes regenerative medicine and interventional orthopedics. He has extensive experience evaluating and treating non-operative orthopedic, sport injury, and musculoskeletal complaints of the spine and extremities. Dr. Newton utilizes regenerative therapies to help patients of all ages get back to an active lifestyle.
Double board-certified in sports and family medicine, Dr. Newton also holds additional training certificates in musculoskeletal Ultrasound and Fluoroscopy. This training is essential to the precision required for Stem Cell, Platelet, and Prolotherapy procedures.
During residency in Vermont, Dr. Newton treated high school athletes and volunteered at injury clinics at nearby ski resorts. As a sports medicine fellow in Cincinnati, he had valuable experiences with Beacon Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine. Here, he was able to evaluate and treat professional and elite level athletes. During this same fellowship, Dr. Newton spent time at spring training in Arizona with the Cincinnati Reds, as well as home games in Cincinnati. He completed a second fellowship in interventional orthopedics and regenerative medicine with Regenexx at the Centeno-Schultz Clinic in Colorado and remained on staff, following its conclusion.
Dr. Newton enjoys being able to assist both physicians and patients with regenerative and interventional orthopedic medicine. He is often given the opportunity to share his expertise and knowledge by teaching musculoskeletal ultrasound courses at annual conferences, such as the American Association of Orthopaedic Medicine. He also participates in a number of volunteer experiences both nationally, as a physician at Ironman triathlons, and internationally, in rural Mexico, treating patients with a myriad of orthopedic complaints.
Outside of the office, Dr. Newton loves being with his wife and four young children. When they're asleep, he trains for and competes in endurance events, such as Ironman triathlons. Dr. Newton is fluent in Spanish.
Dr. Newton is now offering Wednesday evening hours for new patient consultations and procedures. He is seeing patients every Wednesday 9:30 am - 6:00 pm.
Dr. Newton's specialties include Interventional Orthopedics, Regenerative Medicine, Sports Medicine and Family Medicine.
Dr. Newton is the best! Doctors have less and less time to spend with each patient, but he always spends time and listens. Having someone take your pain seriously is already an important step towards healing.
With expertise in spine procedures focusing on decreasing chronic pain, Dr. Lassalle brings nearly a decade of experience as a practicing pain medicine physician to the National Spine and Pain Centers.
The University of Puerto Rico served as the site for his bachelor's degree in biology and Doctor of Medicine. He completed an internship at San Juan City Hospital in Puerto Rico and his anesthesiology residency at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in New York. He concluded a fellowship in pain management at the University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics.
When discussing individualized treatment plans with patients, Dr. Lassalle will always give all alternatives of care to patients "Ultimately the treatment of care is a patient-centered care which will be decided by themselves and guided by the physician's help." As a part of that plan, medication management is a multimodal approach to include anti-inflammatories, muscle relaxants, neuropathic, antidepressants, and opioids.
Being bilingual, Dr. Lassalle is able to communicate with a large population of Florida residents and gives him the possibility of making an increased impact on treating pain. "I love being busy and helping as many patients as possible," he said.
Dr. Soteropoulos joined National Spine & Pain Centers in 2012 after completing advanced fellowship training in Interventional Pain and Spine Management at the Virginia Commonwealth University, where he also received advanced training in spinal cord stimulation from one of the field's foremost experts. A native of Washington, DC, and graduate of Georgetown University Medical School, he is excited to return to the area.
Dr. Cyrus Bakhit joined National Spine & Pain Centers through a partnership in 2014 after having founded the Pain Management Center of Roanoke (Virginia) in 2000. As an interventional pain management physician, Dr. Bakhit specializes in chronic pain issues including back and joint pain, as well as complex regional pain syndrome.
As a pioneer in the field of pain management, Dr. Bakhit was a founding member of the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians in 1998. At that time, he worked tirelessly to successfully obtain recognition of pain management as a medical specialty. He continues his leadership today as a lifetime board member and as a board certification examiner for the society, which has grown to more than 3,000 members. The society is credited for promoting the practice of safe, high quality yet cost effective interventional pain management techniques and for ensuring patient access to these interventions.
Prior to founding Pain Management Center of Roanoke, Dr. Bakhit practiced at the Pain Management Center of Paducah (Kentucky) for five years.
While completing his residency in anesthesiology in the early 1990s, he also served as clinical instructor at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, S.C.
Dr. Bakhit feels that his diagnostic skills are aided by his educational background in internal medicine, which focuses on the prevention and treatment of a broad spectrum of illnesses. His patients appreciate the time he takes to fully understand their pain and the individualized treatments they receive. He is known for his patient, compassionate care.
Dr. Bakhit says he finds pain management challenging and rewarding. "Often, by the time patients come to us, others in the medical field have given up on them. It's our job to provide these patients with interventions that will restore their quality of life," said Dr. Bakhit.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Education / Fellowship
Dr. Alok Gopal joined Advanced Pain Relief Centers in 2005, helping the practice expand its Virginia office locations and establishing the first comprehensive pain center in Martinsburg, West Virginia. He served as vice president of the centers before becoming part of National Spine & Pain Centers in 2015 through a partnership agreement.
In addition to his medical degree, Dr. Gopal is one of the few physicians in the country who is board certified in medical acupuncture and Chinese Herbals for pain, receiving his training from the UCLA Medical School. He is interested in combining alternative medicine with western modalities when appropriate to achieve healthy drug-free pain options for patients.
The focus of Dr. Gopal practice is management of the spine and other chronic pain conditions with fluoroscopic (x-ray) and ultrasound-guided interventions.
Dr. Gopal is the director of pain management at the 445-bed Winchester Medical Center. In order to educate the medical staff and stay current with new ways to treat pain, he leads a journal club of musculoskeletal medicine at the hospital with members meeting regularly to evaluate recent scholarly articles and research studies.
Prior to Advanced Pain Relief Centers, Dr. Gopal was on staff of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire for three years. During that time, he also was an assistant professor, teaching anesthesiology and pain management at the Veterans Administration Medical Center at Dartmouth Medical School.
Dr. Gopal completed a pain management fellowship at Dartmouth Medical School. He trained for his anesthesia residency at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical center (Harvard Medical School) and received advanced training in anesthesia and pain management at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Dr. Gopal has shared his research and knowledge in a variety of publications. Much of his work reflects his interest in the evaluation and management of low back pain.
Dr. Gopal enjoys riding a road bike in the mountains of the Shenandoah Valley in the summer and skiing the same mountains in the winter. He helps run a nonprofit organization in the Shenandoah Valley and, during his visits to India, he volunteers to provide care for an orphanage.
Dr. Cameron T. Kluth was first drawn to anesthesiology because he enjoyed protecting patients when they cannot protect themselves. He also finds the pain management field wonderful because doctors and patients develop a recurring relationship.
"It warms the heart to watch patients improve over time and build a genuine relationship with them," he said. "Relieving pain that they've felt for years and watching their lives improve is a tremendously rewarding feeling."
After spending two years as an interventional pain management doctor at pain medicine practices in Florida and Tennessee, Dr. Kluth joined the National Spine and Pain Centers in summer 2022.
Before he became a doctor, he was a computer programmer and an entrepreneur. Graduating from Wake Forest University with a bachelor's degree in computer science and a master's of business administration from the University of Oxford in England, Dr. Kluth worked as a computer programmer and manager for e-commerce strategy at Office Depot Inc. He also founded On Sea Infrastructure, a start up to build a port in southwest India to refuel large ocean carriers on the high seas.
After earning his Doctor of Medicine from the University of Central Florida in Orlando, he completed an anesthesiology residency and chronic pain fellowship at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD.
Dr. Kluth is a fan of spinal cord stimulators and intrathecal pumps because he has seen these procedures help patients the most over long periods of time.
"Relieving pain that somebody's felt for years and watching their lives improve is a tremendously rewarding feeling," he said. "It gives me a sense of purpose and makes my life more meaningful. It is important to be of service to your local community and try to build a better future together."
When discussing medication management, he knows different patients have different needs. Differentiating between inflammatory, neuropathic, sympathetic, muscular, and nociceptive conditions, Dr. Kluth knows it is important to tailor the right combination of interventions and medications to each individual patient. "Multimodal solutions and identifying the right combination of medications, especially when coupled with interventions, lead to the best outcomes," he said.
The future of patient-centered care is high-touch not high-tech, according to Dr. Kluth. "I try to give patients as much time as possible and my goal is to give them enough information to make an informed choice. We are partners in this process and interventions and medications should be personalized to each individual patient."
Dr. Kluth enjoys his downtime with his wife and daughter. He has donated more than 400 hours to Habitat for Humanity and visited nearly 50 countries on four continents during his travels over the years.
Job Titles:
- Education / Fellowship
- Medical Director for the National Pain Research Institute
Dr. Cherian K. Sajan is driven by the ability to make a difference in people's lives and to watch a patient enjoy some of the things that people otherwise take for granted. "Helping people love life again is what I enjoy the most about my work," he said.
With an interest in sports growing up, musculoskeletal medicine and pain management has always enthralled Dr. Sajan. After spending his undergraduate studies focusing on physics, chemistry, math and biology, he graduated from St. Joseph's College in Bangalore, India.
St. John's Medical College in Bangalore, India served as the site for his medical degree as well as his internship and one of his Residencies that was focused on Orthopedic Surgery. He then completed an Internship in Internal Medicine followed by a Residency in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo. He finished his Fellowship in Interventional Pain Management at the National Pain Institute in Florida.
With a decade of practice experience, Dr. Sajan has served as Medical Director for the National Pain Research Institute since 2014. "Having a great team to work with is what adds color to my canvas," he says.
When discussing the future of pain management, Dr. Sajan is excited about the shift from invasive surgeries with long recovery periods, to minimally invasive procedures, providing patients superior results along with a greater quality of life.
As part of individualized treatment plan development for patients, Dr. Sajan notes that medication management is only a small ingredient of the various options that will be discussed. "The goal of treatment is to ensure a patient is provided the best quality of evidence based medical care, to ensure an improved quality of life and functionality, with the use of minimal amounts of medication," he said.
Dr. Sajan believes pain management is a multi-modality field with the patient, physician and other providers being equal partners.
"Pain management is one of the few fields of medicine where the patient plays an equal, if not a greater part in the treatment plan, than the physician," he said. "My philosophy is to explain to the patient the various options available and let the patient understand the implications, both positive and negative, of the various available choices. I believe that patients who are well educated about their condition, knowledgable about their treatment options, and have a clear understanding of the expectations from the treatment plan, usually have much better outcomes."
After the last patient is seen for the day, Dr. Sajan can be found spending time with his family, exploring new places and watching sports.