Daniel Pak, MD
Bio
Daniel J. Pak, MD, is a double board-certified, fellowship-trained anesthesiology and pain medicine physician who serves as Assistant Vice President of Fellow Education for the American Society of Pain and Neuroscience (ASPN). He is Associate Professor of Anesthesiology, Director of Interventional Spine, and Associate Chief of Chronic Pain in the Department of Anesthesiology, Critical Care and Pain Medicine at McGovern Medical School, UTHealth Houston, where he also teaches in the institution’s pain medicine fellowship program. He previously held faculty positions at Weill Cornell Medicine and Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School in New York and Boston.
Dr. Pak earned his medical degree from the University of Michigan Medical School, graduating with distinction and research honors, after completing his undergraduate studies at Duke University. He trained in anesthesiology residency at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medicine, where he received the Sadel Wortis Klein Award for Excellence in Clinical Performance and an award for Excellence in Research, and went on to a pain medicine fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. He is certified by the American Board of Anesthesiology in both anesthesiology and pain medicine.
His clinical and research focus is interventional pain management, with particular emphasis on neuromodulation — including spinal cord stimulation, dorsal root ganglion stimulation, and peripheral nerve stimulation — as well as intrathecal drug delivery, vertebral augmentation, and treatment of complex spine-related and cancer pain. He has co-authored peer-reviewed publications in journals including Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine and Pain Physician, spanning a systematic review and meta-analysis of ganglion impar blocks for coccydynia, a systematic review of psilocybin for chronic neuropathic pain, and a narrative review on selecting neuromodulation devices for chronic pain. Within ASPN, he is a past participant and supporter of the Poster to Podium mentorship program and has moderated the society’s Young Innovators webinar series on regenerative techniques in pain medicine.