Sandy Christiansen, MD

Sandy Christiansen, MD, is a member of the Research Committee of the American Society of Pain and Neuroscience (ASPN). She is Associate Professor of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) School of Medicine in Portland, where she has practiced since 2016.

Dr. Christiansen earned her medical degree from the Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, completed residency training in anesthesiology at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, and completed a fellowship in pain medicine at Johns Hopkins University, where she trained under Steven Cohen, MD. Her clinical and research work focuses on interventional pain techniques for cancer-related pain, a focus she has described as shared by only a handful of clinician-researchers nationally.

Her published research spans sacroiliac joint pain and cooled radiofrequency ablation, occupational radiation safety, and how pain medicine fellowships prepare physicians to treat cancer pain. She has contributed to ASPN publications, including national survey work on procedural education for cancer-related pain in pain medicine fellowships.