Glad to help. In response to your request, I looked up those doctors in San Antonio who have been certified by the American Board of Pain Medicine. This is a group which has, as part of it's mission, the development of "standards and requirements for graduate medical education in Pain Medicine in collaboration with other concerned organizations and agencies," e.g., that they supervise standards in residency and fellowship programs across the country and they in turn certify only pain management psysicians who meet their educational - resisidency and/or fellowship - standards, and pass an 8 hour written exam. So it's the real deal. (To use its search engine to find someone in any geographic area, go here: http://www.association-office.com/ab...dir/search.cfm.)

In any event, I had seventeen hits, two of them were anesthiologists affilliated with the Pain Clinic of the UT Health Sciences Center in San Antonio (and full professors at that). Their contact information is is follows:

Somayaji Ramamurthy, MD
University of Texas Health Science Ctr
Anesthesia - Pain Clinic
7703 Floyd Curl Dr
San Antonio, TX 78229-3900
Office Fax: (210)567-4471
Office Phone: (210)567-4543
Office E-Mail: Ramamurthy@utscsa.edu
Specialty of Origin: Anesthesiology

James N. Rogers, MD
UTMSCSA
Anesthesiology Dept - Pain Clinic
7703 Floyd Curl Dr
San Antonio, TX 78284
Office Fax: (210)567-4471
Office Phone: (210)567-4543
Office E-Mail: JNR@aries.utscasa.edu
Specialty of Origin: Anesthesiology

In keeping with my last post, about the value of doing these surgeries through a university hospital, they might then be able to direct your friend to an appropriate surgeon, on the one hand, and an O.R. anesthesiologist on their faculty familiar with continuous regional anesthesiology, on the other hand, who could then perform the procedure in a coordinated fashion. Much as my pain doc at the USC Pain Clinic was able to refer me to a general surgeon at USC, when another surgeon in the general community told me that (at least in LA) there was no was to set this up outside of a univerisity hospital. Accordingly, one way to start would be through the UT San Antonio Pain Clinic and go from there.

I hope this can work out for your friend.

Mike